The Devil's Own
by Spikey44
Summary: An AU tale of bad boys and bad girls, rebellion and secrets. A tale of Marauders and Xmen, damnation and redemption and the thin line betwixt and between. Post Onslaught, a story of Gambit, Polaris, Creed, Sinister and the Xmen. This time it's war.
1. Chapter 1

**The Devil's Own**

_Disclaimer: all known and recognisable characters, locales, names etc. property of Marvel. I'm just playing with them for no profit except my enjoyment. Any unrecognisable characters, locales, names etc. are mine._

_A/N: This story is an A.U. situation. It is based in the X-Men continuity of the mid-late nineties. Think post Onslaught, pre-Bastion/Operation Zero Tolerance, but will diverge from canon quite a bit. In this story, most particularly, half the X-men team did __not__ get sent to Shi'ar space to fight the Phalanx and thus do not end up in Antarctica. The story can also be taken as a loose sequel to my other story 'King of Secrets' but it is not necessary to have read that one to read this one. _

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**Prologue: Strange bedfellows**

The woman had not set foot in D.C. for a while, months even. It felt strange to be walking these streets again, winding her way through the capital, so close to so many government buildings filled with government operatives, many of whom had tried to kill her more than once.

It seemed stranger still that the person she was here to meet had insisted on carrying out this rendezvous in the café of the Smithsonian. Far too public she had thought. What if they were seen? But then she had realised there was a beautiful and bizarre logic to it all.

What better place for two mutants to meet, one a former government employee gone rogue and the other a mutant who had spent his life on the wrong side of the law, then in sight of the Capitol in the very heart of the nation? Trust a thief to think of it. It was the perfect camouflage as no one would ever think two X-men would be so overt or foolhardy.

Shaking a tendril of green hair from her face Lorna Dane, the mutant known as Polaris, walked into the Smithsonian and ignored the looks she received for her height, her athletically muscular build and more particularly, her vividly green hair. She was used to being stared at and she didn't really care if anyone recognised her. Somehow she doubted the government would field a team to take her on in the Smithsonian; they wouldn't want to deal with the property damages.

The man she had agreed to meet was already seated at one of the tables in the restaurant; long and lanky with a sweep of dark hair falling artfully over his eyes and designer stubble on his sharp chin and angled jaw, Lorna couldn't help a slight smile of wry appreciation. The man at the table absently flipping a single playing card through his fingers looked as relaxed and insolently casual as could be.

Lorna had the feeling he had already spotted her approach but he didn't react as she walked directly to his table and sat down in the chair opposite him. He looked at her through dark glasses.

'Bonjour Polaris, 'ppreciate you comin' to meet me like dis.' He nodded to her with a certain ironic politeness.

'I'd say you were welcome Gambit, but considering the reason behind this meeting you can understand why I really wish I was anywhere but here.' Lorna folded her hands together over the table top. The man smiled slyly.

'Fair 'nuff, not gon argue wit dat.' He shrugged casually and to Lorna's surprise reached across the table to offer her his hand. 'T'ink, if we gon talk about dis, we should be better acquainted: Remy LeBeau, pleasure to meet you.'

Charmed despite her misgivings Lorna took his hand, smiling faintly, 'Lorna Dane; we have been introduced before you know. The first time when Charles was shot and Scott and Jean were taken to the moon and I think a couple of social dos at the mansion.'

The smile grew wider in a quick flash of teeth, 'Non, dat ain't an introduction dat's jus' de roll call an' anyway, we ain't X-men here. Dis talk ain't about any of dat.'

Lorna's smile wilted and she withdrew her hand. 'I know, Gambit how do you know about – '

He cut her off with a wave of his hand, the one that still held the card neatly lodged between his fingers. Lorna knew what kind of damage he was capable of doing with just one card and she watched his hand warily. She didn't really know Gambit from Adam but she didn't think he had asked her here simply to try and kill her; after all he didn't have motive for that. She was as much a stranger to him as he was to her.

In fact Lorna was pretty sure this was the longest conversation she had ever had with the man. Beyond any of that however and the reason she had agreed to meet him, despite her misgivings, was the simple fact that he was an X-man. Had been an X-man almost three years now, and even if as the gossip went, he was not the most popular member of the team, being part of the team suggested he was at least unlikely to go berserk in the middle of the Smithsonian.

'Remy, sil vous plait, not Gambit. I call you Polaris if you prefer, but for dis, I t'ink we be as we are not as we wish to be, no?' He flashed her that smile again; the one that was there and gone in a moment leaving his face cold.

Lorna tensed slightly and tried not to show it. That strangely cold smile twitched the edge of Gambit's lips and she knew that he had caught her reaction. Lorna reminded herself that in a knockdown drag out powers fight she was more than a match for him. Unfortunately she suspected that Gambit would make sure that it wouldn't come to a powers fight and neutralise any advantage she thought she had.

'You tense, Madame Dane?' Gambit purred an unmistakable edge in his voice as he deliberately leaned back in his chair and smiled at her. With his arms hanging back over the chair and his head tilted down so his chin almost rested on his chest he looked over the rim of his shades, red eyes almost playful. The flirtatious slant to his body language was completely at odds with the cold whisper of threat in his words.

'I didn't come here to play games, _Monsieur_ Lebeau.' She snapped, getting ready to leave. 'Either say what you want to say or I'm leaving.'

'You speak French?' He sat up straight and crossed his arms demurely over the table top, the model of propriety. He looked up at her with a much more open smile.

'What?' confused by his sudden change in mood Lorna sat back down.

'Do you speak French? De way you say 'monsieur', de accent sound right. Most people, they mangle the word, lose the flavour of it. Even if they know the words, with a bad accent, it just don't matter.'

He shrugged his shoulders, elbows on the table so he could cup his chin in his palms as he watched her through those dark glasses. Lorna frowned as she realised his accent had almost completely faded. What was he playing at?

'I took French in high school, but no, I don't speak French.' Lorna found herself wishing she knew more about the man so as to better judge his actions for possible threats, 'Speaking of accents what's up with yours? One moment it's thick as molasses the next you sound almost normal.'

The slightest twitch of his lips belied his amusement, 'I take offence to de normal crack, mademoiselle.' He shrugged again, a very Gallic gesture, 'As to de accent; been livin' up north so long it gets to a body, no? Plus, like I say, today isn't about de acts we put on but about de people we are underneath.'

Lorna arched an eyebrow, moving her hands to her lap so that he wouldn't be able to see her nervously plucking fingers. 'I don't know what scam you're pulling Gambit, but I'm not putting on any act.'

He shook his head, tapping the edge of the card in his hand against the table top. She noticed that it was the ace of spades. Vaguely Lorna found herself wondering if that was an omen of something. 'You keep callin' me 'Gambit' an' I t'ink I asked you not to, oui?'

'Why don't you want me calling you Gambit? It's your codename isn't it?'

Lorna was really wondering why she didn't just get up and leave. Gambit was sending out so many mixed messages in body language, tone, attitude, that she was, although she would never admit it, nervous to be around the man. She really knew nothing about him and he already seemed to know far too much about her.

He sighed and to her surprise took off his glasses so he could rub his thumbs into his closed eyes. In doing so he dropped the card onto the table top alongside the shades.

'Gambit be de role I play for de X-men, for my Stormy and, once upon a time, for Rogue.' He dropped his hand from his eyes and met her gaze dead on with his eerie, but undoubtedly fascinating, red on black eyes.

'Gambit is de smartass, two-bit t'ief and drifter from de Louisiana backwoods dat mooch off de charity of de Professeur and Summers'. De shady no account redneck de X-men keep around to show de worl' dat dey don' discriminate 'gainst white trash, oui?'

Lorna Dane blinked and wondered what to say to that, or if she should say anything at all. Despite the words he didn't sound bitter. Instead he sounded as if he was stating facts simply as they were; or perhaps, merely, as he liked them to appear?

Lorna said nothing as she studied the man across the table from her, who was currently disinterestedly looking over the menu on the table. Who are you really, Gambit? She wondered silently, do the X-men even know, I wonder?

On the one occasion that she and Jean had actually spoken about Gambit, it had been Christmas, the first Christmas Lorna had spent as a member of X-Factor and, she remembered, it would have been Gambit's first Christmas as part of the X-Men. Except that he'd bailed on the X-Men Christmas extravaganza to the displeasure of most of the team and most especially Rogue. It had been Rogue's monstrous sulking that had drawn the conversation between Lorna and Jean to Gambit. Hearing Gambit's words now reminded Lorna forcibly of Jean's words then.

'Gambit is one of the most contrary men I've ever met, Lorna. I can't read him, the Professor can't read him, and Logan tells me that his scent never matches the façade he puts on. He's pursued Rogue from almost the moment he came here and now, for no reason, announces that he's taking off for a few days right before Christmas.'

Jean had sounded thoroughly disapproving and Lorna remembered her curiosity being piqued. Jean rarely let her temper get to her but when it did it was rather fun to see - so long as Lorna wasn't on the receiving end of it, that is.

'Perhaps he just doesn't like Christmas? He wouldn't be the first X-man who didn't.' Lorna had suggested at the time, mostly to keep the conversation going and see how annoyed her friend would get.

Jean's green eyes had almost flashed, 'Then he should have said. No one would have forced him to participate. But leaving with barely a word is just plain rude.' Jean's lovely mouth had pursed into a thin line; Lorna had been intrigued.

'You don't like him much, do you?'

Lorna remembered how frustrated Jean had sounded when she had answered and recalled that she'd been surprised. Jean had a tendency to take the Den Mother thing too far sometimes but that usually meant that she over did it when it came to trying to 'understand' her less sociable teammates. Jean hadn't sounded particularly understanding about Gambit however.

'Like him? Lorna I don't know him. It's not just his shields either; I can accept that he wants to keep his privacy. It's the fact that he doesn't stay the same person from one day to the next. He's unpredictable. I swear Lorna, living with him and Rogue is like living in a house with a caged tornado. One of them is going to go off at some point in the day but no one knows which it will be or what will set them off.'

Lorna had laughed at the description, 'Sounds like fun; actually it sounds like me and Alex on a bad day.'

Jean, who had already been feeling the pressure of hosting an X-Christmas event, had rolled her eyes in exasperation. 'You and Alex have nothing on those two, trust me.' She had sighed then and tried to shake the tension from her shoulders. Her voice became more reasonable in tone and less strident, Lorna recalled.

'I'd be more comfortable with Gambit if it was a matter of him being just another hair-trigger like Rogue or even Logan, but that's the thing that really get's me about the man, Lorna; I don't think he is. I think he's putting on an act to keep us at arms length and the whole thing drives me crazy. He's been here almost a year; I don't understand why he keeps playing these games with us.'

Lorna had chewed on that for a moment. At the time she'd thought that it was a shame Gambit wasn't around for this shindig as he'd sounded like the sort that would liven up a dull Christmas gathering.

'Do you think he's hiding something?' she had asked finally, worried at the time that Jean might have caught that last thought and been offended. It wasn't Jean's fault that Lorna wasn't a big fan of large social gatherings either……or Christmas for that matter.

Jean had smiled caustically in response, 'He's a former professional thief. It's pretty much a given that he's hiding a fair bit. Most of it's probably in off-shore accounts, too.'

Lorna's brows had sky-rocketed. Jean had shaken her head with dark amusement, brushing long red waves behind her ear, 'Logan and Scott have a theory. They think that Gambit's on the run from something. Logan thinks he's with the X-men for protection. Scott doesn't think that's it, he thinks Gambit's here because of a guilty conscience _and _because he's on the run.'

'So the two men in your life don't like him?' Lorna had teased; she enjoyed teasing both Scott and Jean about Logan's long standing unrequited crush on Jean. Jean had given Lorna the requisite long-suffering sigh and mock glare before answering.

'I'm not going to dignify that comment with response. As to Gambit, well, he and Logan seem to have come to a kind of understanding; they don't like each other but they'll pretend just to keep the peace. Plus they have too many things in common. They like to drink copious amounts of alcohol, stay out all night, ride motorcycles and play poker.'

Jean had shrugged then as if to dismiss the silliness of the masculine mind and she and Lorna had laughed.

'As for Scott,' Jean had flapped a hand airily, 'well, as long as Gambit does what he's told in the field more or less when he's told Scott's not too concerned about what he does the rest of the time. Plus Gambit can programme the digital set-top box and the VCR, and you know Scott's useless with technology.'

'Mademoiselle Dane? Lorna…..you still dere, cherie?'

Lorna snapped to when Gambit leaned across the table to click his fingers in front of her face. Without thinking she batted his hand away with her own, frowning. Gambit sat back in his chair looking amused.

'You okay dere? Thought you fell into a coma or so'ting, me.' he smirked at her and she noticed, beyond her own embarrassment, that his accent had grown more pronounced. She wondered how much control he had over it.

Lorna gathered her thoughts while she watched the man across the table from her. 'How did you know I'd been having dreams about……' she could not finish then she forced herself to speak the name, 'About Sinister?'

Gambit's expression was a strange mix of sympathy and something almost like shared pain. 'Din't know for sure, but I figured it was a safe guess you would be. De clock's been tickin' in my head for weeks.'

Lorna shivered and didn't try to hide it. 'The clock…..'

She had been dreaming of a clock, like an old fashioned Grandfather clock in the back of her mind counting down in her dreams, for weeks now herself. Her dreams, which were more like nightmares, or harbingers of doom to come.

In her dreams she saw herself before a full length mirror with that awful clock at her back, and her reflection wore Malice's bloodstained colours. Except it wasn't Malice in the mirror. It wasn't that sadistic stranger's eyes she stared into in the mirror. No, the real horror of the dream was that the face that looked back at her in the mirror was her own. Malice was gone, but Lorna knew that wouldn't save her from Sinister, at least not in the dreams.

A thought occurred to her and she speared the man across from her with her gaze, 'You hear the clock too? You have the same dreams?' she demanded and he nodded solemnly. Lorna stared at him. 'But how can that be? You were never a…' she stopped again, the look in his naked eyes silencing her words.

Gambit smiled at her sadly, bitterly. 'A marauder?' he asked softly, 'Wish to hell dat were true; bet you do too, non? But I hear de clock tickin' an' I know what it means.'

Lorna's blood ran cold as ice and her stomach clenched in fear. The fact that Gambit had just admitted to being a Marauder, despite the fact that she had no recollection of him from her time as Malice came second in her consideration to the more immediate terror of what the dreams truly portended.

'Oh god no. No, that nightmare is over. Malice was the marauder not me.'

'Den why is de clock tickin' for you too, chere?' Gambit asked her, voice soft and compassionate yet somehow relentless, 'Why'd you come t'meet me, if you truly believe you not one of de Devil's own, eh?'

'The Devil's own?' Lorna whispered her hands balled into fists but she couldn't stop the tremor as they curled on the table top.

Gambit reached out and placed his own cool hand over her clenched fist. His red eyes were bleeding a shared fear; she knew then that he was not lying. He too knew what it felt like to be under the thumb of Sinister.

'Oui, de Devil's own. Don't matter dat we never 'ad any choice in de matter. All dat matter is dat he comin' to collect his due.' Gambit fixed his eyes on hers unwaveringly and his hand tightened over her own. 'He's coming for us, Lorna.'

The words sounded a death knell; she wanted to drop to her knees and scream. She wanted to rip the building apart one metal component after the other. All she could do was swallow hard as her vision misted with panic and tears.

'God no, not again, please. I can't….I _won't_ let him control me again.' She looked down at Gambit's hand over hers and then up into his eyes that watched her keenly.

'Den you gon help me, Mademoiselle? Devil's own we may be, non? But I don't intend to go down to hell wit'out a fight.' He smiled and there was something strangely shy, almost nervous in it. Lorna wondered if it was perhaps the first real smile he had given her. Gambit gave her a strangely naked look, meeting her eyes dead on.

'I'm hopin' dat you not de sort of femme to go down easy neither, oui?'

Lorna stared at this man, this stranger who she did not know. A man she had no reason to trust or believe. She knew him to be a divisive and secretive member of the X-men who could count very few of that group among his friends and who was universally viewed with various degrees of suspicion by everyone who knew him. She did not know what connection he had to Sinister, for all she knew he worked for Sinister and was trying to trap her into service once more……and yet, looking into his face, she found that she _did_ believe him. It was in his eyes; that pain, that fear.

It was like looking into a mirror; her fear, her own pain, looking back at her from someone else's eyes.

The fear of the Devil; only one who had known real evil like Sinister could recognise the scar in another. Lorna saw it in Gambit and knew he could see the same bleeding wound in her. She turned her hand under his; her fingers wound through his and she squeezed.

'Your right G – _Remy,_'she amended quickly and saw the flash of acknowledgement and gratitude in his eyes. A surge of inexplicable but fierce hope filled her.

For weeks she had kept her dreams and her fears secret from everyone and the slow burning panic had gnawed at her soul like acid erosion. Now, suddenly, she felt like she had a chance to fight back. She held Remy LeBeau's hand, he who was not a friend or even a teammate, and squeezed tightly.

'Tell me your plan.' She said firmly, fiercely. 'I'm ready to fight.'

The man who sometimes called himself Gambit smiled; a real smile, broad but faltering; scared but trying nevertheless, 'D'accord. Den dis is what we gon do…..'

Clasping hands over the table in the Smithsonian restaurant, looking like a young couple very much in love, heads almost touching as they whispered, Lorna Dane and Remy LeBeau, strangers to each other, came together to plot the downfall of the Devil himself.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Just a quick note to say thank you to everyone who has read and responded to this story's prologue. Also, I have rated this story 'T' but as of this chapter a little bit of coarse language comes into play, not a lot but some, so therefore I'd appreciate people's views. Do I up the rating or is it okay as a 'teen' ? Thanks. _

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**Chapter One: Intervention**

Scott Summers lifted his head as he caught the first strains of raised voices and sighed. He neatly and precisely put his pen on top of his notepad and rose from behind the desk. It had taken him a long time after Onslaught before he could bear to be in Charles' office for any length of time, let alone co-opt it for his own use. Yet with every passing day it seemed less and less likely that Charles would be coming home.

Frowning Scott pushed those sorts of thoughts from his mind and stepped out into the hall to quell the latest skirmish in the long running, torrid saga of Rogue and Gambit's less than ideal love affair. Though, Scott amended sourly, there hadn't been much in the way of _love _being expressed by either side of the equation lately.

'Ya ain't even gonna tell me where ya been?' he heard Rogue first; it was always Rogue who made the most noise.

'Tol' you, I was out. Dat's all; even cleared it with Scottie.' Gambit's voice, in contrast, was low but the obviously strained patience was clearly audible. He wasn't yelling yet but it sounded like that might change at any given moment.

Scott zoned in on the sound and decided that the fight was taking place in the kitchen. He turned the corner in the corridor and saw a surprisingly grim faced Bobby standing in the doorway to the den. He met his old friend's eyes. Bobby rolled his and shook his head; making it clear that he wasn't going to step into the breach between the warring southerners.

Scott entered the kitchen. The first thing he saw was a rather anxious looking Joseph standing just inside the room hovering by the dining table. The mysterious, newest member of the X-men (excluding Sam who had been involved with the X-teams for years) turned to give Scott a brief nod of greeting before returning all his attention to the two other occupants of the room.

Rogue stood with her hands to her hips glaring daggers at Gambit. Gambit stood on the other side of the kitchen island head bowed as he made himself a sandwich. The tension in the room was palpable. Scott stifled the urge to shake the pair of them and tell them to grow the hell up. He knew from experience it didn't do any good.

'Gambit – how was Washington?' Scott asked. It had proved a relatively good strategy in the past to engage one side in conversation to diffuse the argument. Gambit looked up at him, knife poised to cut into his thick wedge sandwich. The man was still wearing his trench coat. He shrugged dismissively.

'Dey got a new exhibit at de Smithsonian; c'est bon.'

The man replied calmly enough and Scott thought he detected just the faintest hint of a teasing grin on his lips, completely at odds with the situation. Then again Scott had found, after three years of living and working with the man, that Gambit could turn on a dime like that anyway. One moment angry, one moment depressed, one moment carrying on as if he didn't have a care in the world. It was incredibly irritating.

'Remember the rules Gambit; no stealing while living under this roof.' Scott rebuked him mildly.

Contrary to popular opinion in the mansion, Scott did not actually dislike Gambit. The two were not friends per se, but that was mostly because Gambit was an incredibly difficult person to get to know. He was volatile and mercurial and Scott simply did not have the patience for it most of the time. Still Gambit did what he was told ninety-five percent of the time (which was more than Wolverine) and he pulled his weight in the mansion and on the team. Scott didn't have to be best friends with a person to respect them as a team mate.

The man in question flicked his eyes up to him and smiled thinly, 'D'accord. I just went to look, mon Capitan. No harm in lookin', no?'

'Ya went to Washington D.C.?' Rogue interrupted, 'Why couldn't ya just say so?'

Scott was curious about this too. For the most part Gambit didn't seem to instigate the fights (with the exception of that fiasco with Joseph on the back lawn, which was guaranteed to make both men red with embarrassment when brought up). However what he did do was exacerbate the situation by stonewalling Rogue even over silly things; a case in point being Gambit's immediate response. The man shrugged. It was almost possible to see Rogue's blood boil. Scott sighed.

'Enough. Just stow it you two.' Scott said tiredly and one pair of green eyes and one pair of red on black looked up at him sharply.

'Rogue, Gambit isn't obligated to tell you what he does when he leaves the mansion.' He turned away from the woman before she could say anything in response and fixed Gambit with a look, 'And Gambit, Rogue is your team mate, it's polite to answer her questions - honestly if you think you can manage it.'

Rogue snorted sourly, 'Chance would be a fine thing.'

Gambit's eyes flashed and his lips pursed into a thin line. Scott regretted his words. It was a running gag at the mansion that Gambit was obsessively secretive and usually the man simply brushed off any light hearted jibes, but the recent downturn in his relationship with Rogue had taken a lot of the humour out of those old jokes.

Scott rolled his eyes, knowing the gesture was hidden by his visor, 'Claws in Rogue.'

Rogue subsided, Gambit did not. 'I did answer her honestly.' He snapped accent fading as his temper heated up. He turned from Scott to scowl at Rogue.

'Tol' you chere, I was out. Got a right to leave dis damn house from time to time wit'out gettin' de third degree.'

''Out' ain't an answer it's an evasion.' Rogue snapped back, 'ah course Ah'm foolin' myself ta think ya'd know the difference.'

Gambit slammed down the knife with a clatter, 'Den why you still 'ere? If I'm not'ing but a lyin' piece o' trash why de hell you keep bothering me? You don't believe a word I say so why de fuck won't you leave me alone?'

Gambit shoved himself away from the island and stalked around to their side, the tails of his coat swishing. Scott wondered how he did it but it almost seemed like Gambit's coat had become infused with his temper; the air around the Cajun seemed to crackle.

'Ah nevah said that. Ah nevah said ya were trash.' Rogue, invulnerable, untouchable and blessed with super strength took a step back as Gambit rounded on her. 'Ah….ah was just worried…' she trailed off.

Gambit sneered, his voice dropping an octave and accent fading even more; body language aside, that was a sure sign that the Cajun had lost his temper.

'Worried? Is dat right; and what were you worried about?' He demanded eyebrows arched and lips curled into a scornful sneer.

'You t'ink if I'm let off my leash even for a weekend I'm gon go back to crime, dat it? Maybe I got some evil scheme going on the side and I'm gon betray you all, eh?'

Rogue shook her head. 'Ah was worried about _you_. Don't act like we're enemies Remy. It ain't like that. Ah still care f'ya sugar.' Her voice softened but she kept out of Gambit's reach.

Clearly the Mississippian had not expected Gambit to fight back, but then again, he usually didn't. In fact considering the man had single-mindedly pursued Rogue for the best part of three years, he had given up the fight for Rogue's heart shockingly quickly once she returned with Joseph in tow. Midnight scuffles in the backyard not withstanding. It was yet another aspect of the man's personality Scott did not understand.

Gambit laughed shortly, 'Ah oui, you were _worried_ about me.'

If it had been possible to bottle bitterness Gambit would have provided a few pints worth just from the poison dripping off those few words. Scott winced. He wondered if this was the moment one of the pair finally came out and admitted that the relationship was well and truly over.

In all honestly the look Gambit had given Rogue to accompany those words was enough to make Scott tense, as if anticipating battle. He had seen Gambit look at Sabretooth like that. He found himself wondering for the first time if Gambit actually hated Rogue for leaving him and taking up with Joseph right under his nose.

'Dat makes it okay den, non?' Gambit raised his hands in an airy gesture and bared his teeth in something that was not a smile.

'It's okay dat you interrogate me soon as I'm t'rough de door, don' even let me take my damn coat off or make a snack. It's okay because you only doin' it _because you_ _care_.'

If sarcasm could cut everyone in the kitchen would now be bleeding, Scott thought vaguely as he watched, transfixed, by the train wreck of a relationship he was now witnessing. Just like watching a high speed collision; there was nothing Scott could do but watch, though he felt guilty doing that.

'Well you know what chere, don do me any favours non? I t'ink I be happier wit'out your care an' your worry, so why don' you take your lil' amnesiac boy-toy an' leave me be, d'accord?'

Rogue stared at him mutely, tears clearly visible in her eyes. Joseph took a step forward and Scott turned to give him a warning look. The last thing he needed was for the three of them to get into something right here in the kitchen. Damn it, Scott had been looking to stop a fight not start one.

'Gambit, calm down,' he said firmly and red on black eyes burned into him. A muscle in the man's cheek twitched. For a moment Scott thought he might challenge the unmistakable order. He braced himself to put Gambit in his place if he had to.

After an interminable moment of stillness the red on black eyes dropped and Gambit took a step back. Scott relaxed fractionally. Unlike Wolverine Gambit always backed down. Scott often wondered why, considering the man clearly didn't like some of the orders he was given. Still the important thing was that Gambit obeyed the chain of command, grudgingly and with a great deal of sarcastic asides, but Scott could just ignore those.

'Good.' Scott said letting his hooded gaze sweep over Rogue and Joseph. 'Rogue, Joseph. I don't think this is either the time or the place for this. In fact, just stop this pointless squabbling altogether and go and get some air, both of you.'

'Of course Cyclops,' Joseph seemed more relieved than anything else and reached out for Rogue. Rogue for her part looked like she might want to argue but one look at Scott's face and then to Gambit, who refused to look at her at all, changed her mind. She left without a word, Joseph's arm around her waist in support.

Scott turned back to see that Gambit's eyes were rooted to the sight of the two departing mutants arm in arm. The expression on his face, unguarded for a second, gave Scott a moment of unexpected sympathy. Instead of anger, or even jealousy, there was grief and loss raw enough that it hurt to see it.

'Gambit?' Scott waited until the man looked at him and watched the mask snap into place.

'Oui, Cyclops?'

Scott sighed. He hated this part of the 'job'. 'Look I'm pretty sure I know what your answer is going to be but I'm obligated as your team leader to make the offer anyway.' He took another breath as Gambit's brows twitched in surprise, 'If you want to talk about…..things….my doors open, okay?'

Scott waited for the smartass joke in response, or the angry or brusque dismissal. He and Gambit did not 'talk'. He gave orders and Gambit followed them to an extent. That was the limit of their relationship and it had always worked just fine for them. Gambit blinked at him and cocked his head to the side, considering.

'Not right now merci, but later, oui, there is something I need to talk to you about.' Gambit said quietly and politely, accent almost inaudible.

Scott felt his own surprise paint over his features, 'Oh, um, sure.'

As he watched, trying to regain his composure, Gambit turned and retrieved his sandwich, loaded it onto a plate with an apple and some chips, scooped up a beer, and carried the collection with perfect balance out of the room. Scott stood there for a moment waiting for the other shoe to drop. It didn't.

'Well darn.' He muttered. It looked like he was going to have a heart to heart with their resident tight-lipped Cajun after all. Damn, sometimes he really hated being the leader.

* * *

Scott was finishing up the daily report he always wrote up for Charles when someone knocked on his door (the fact that the Professor wasn't here didn't mean that Scott should stop writing reports he reasoned – it just meant that Charles would have a lot of reading to catch up on when he came home).

'Come in,' Scott saved the document on the computer and looked up half expecting Gambit to walk through the door. He was therefore slightly surprised to see Hank's large blue head poke around the opening.

'Ah, good eventide to you fearless one; I hope the evening finds you well?'

Scott smiled faintly at the characteristically verbose greeting and waved his old friend into the room, 'I'm fine Hank. What can I do for you?'

Hank bounded into the room after closing the door with his usual enthusiasm. He perched on the guest chair and began to clean his glasses. 'I wished to discuss the latest physical exams with you, my august leader-man.'

Scott laced his hands across the desk in unconscious mimicry of Charles. He did not notice the gesture but everyone else did. Most of the team found it strangely comforting and for that reason no one mentioned it. 'Go ahead Hank.'

Physicals were performed on a monthly basis since Charles first founded his school and every team member had to relent to them. It was part of training and conditioning and a way to monitor changes in mutant power or the healing of injuries picked up in the field. It was one of the less enjoyable sides of X-men life but it was also a fundamental part of the routine. So routine in fact that usually Hank did not bother to come out of his lab to discuss the results with Scott – not unless he had found something wrong, that was. A nameless worry swirled in Scott's gut.

Hank continued to fiddle with his glasses, which was a sure sign something was wrong.

'Hank?'

Blue eyes looked up at him from a big blue furred face, 'Bobby told me that our confederate compatriots decided to try and re-enact the razing of Atlanta in our kitchen earlier.'

Scott took a moment to get his surprise out of his system. He did not understand the change in conversation matter. He frowned, 'It was nothing we haven't seen before.'

'Yes, well, it's our _ragin' Cajun_ I wanted to talk to you about.' Hank admitted without any of his usual eloquence.

'There's something wrong with his physical exam? – you did manage to get him into the lab for his monthly exam, right?' Scott queried trying to anticipate what had upset Hank. Gambit, Logan, and strangely Bishop, were always the most reluctant to submit to the physicals.

Hank looked acutely uncomfortable. Still it was only the fact that Scott had known him for years that allowed him to see that discomfort in the furred face.

'Firstly I must preface this discussion by stating that this is merely conjecture on my part. I have tried to speak with Gambit to either confirm or discredit my initial diagnosis but he has been his usual charmingly evasive self. I have been in two minds whether or not to raise my concerns with you, however if I am correct in my hypothesis, it could impact on the cohesion of the team.'

'Hank, you're babbling.' Scott interrupted him, on full alert now, 'What did you find in Gambit's physical that has you concerned?'

Hank rifled the sheaf of papers in his hands. 'Very well, to cut directly to the meat of the issue: I have reason to believe that Gambit is currently in the midst of a major depressive episode and this is impacting upon his physical health as well as his, well, _personal_ life.'

Scott could not think of a thing to say. 'You think Gambit's depressed?'

'_Clinically _depressed, Scott; the man is ill. I have here,' he shook the sheaf of papers once more, 'the print outs from Gambit's physical exams dating back six months, since he awakened from his kiss induced coma.'

Hank plucked out two print outs and laid them on the desk. He tapped a black clawed finger over one paper and then the other in turn.

'When Gambit awoke from his coma he weighed in at a lean, but relatively respectable under the circumstances, one hundred and seventy six pound, having lost three pound during his coma.'

Hank took a breath and Scott dutifully looked at the numbers and squiggly lines all over the printout, even though he could understand only every other word on the paper.

'As you know Gambit is one of the lightest gentleman X-men on the team; only Warren is lighter. Warren has a reason for his lithe physique. His bones are hollow and his mutation does away with any excess fat.' Hank continued.

'And Gambit?'

Scott knew Gambit was lean. In fact Gambit made a lie of Scott's own nickname of 'Slim'. Scott knew he had at least ten pound on Gambit and he was far from the heaviest X-man on the roster; however the former thief had no trouble whatsoever when it came to punching above his weight.

Hank shrugged uncomfortably, 'As you know Gambit is very reluctant to allow me to fully map out the nature of his mutation and physiology. Despite this I do know some of the secrets of the man's mutation.' Hank squinted, almost a leer, which was his version of a raised eyebrow look.

'I do not know if you are aware of this, but Gambit, despite looking, dare I say 'human', is actually physiologically quite different. He has extra vertebrae in his spine. Redundant tendons, his muscle density is subtly different, and the processes his body uses to breakdown contaminants are….'

Scott raised a forestalling hand before Hank forgot the purpose of his visit, 'I figured he'd have to be physically different from baseline human Hank. There's no way the man could jump or contort his body like he does in battle if he wasn't. Plus there are his eyes, which aren't human. What does this have to do with clinical depression?'

Hank sighed and looked down at the piece of paper on the left, 'This is his weight as measured last week. As you can see, not only has Gambit failed to regain his lost pounds but has shed a further six pounds in the intervening months. At one hundred and seventy pound he now weighs less than Warren and with Gambit's rapid metabolism that much weight loss can be dangerous.'

Hank paused to pull his spectacles from his nose once more. He began to tap them against the papers laid out over the table.

'Gambit's biokinetic charge is fuelled by the energy his body generates through motion, and to an extent through the breakdown of calories and such like from the food he eats. Without enough fuel, in the form of food, the 'charge' will start to deplete his energy reserves and further exacerbate his weight loss; if it hasn't already.'

Scott was sure he was missing something, 'Hank I don't understand. What does weight loss have to do with Depression? I mean we are talking about Depression the illness, right? Not just that Gambit is miserable because Rogue left him?'

'It's a symptom Scott.' Hank said frankly, 'Lack of appetite, weight loss, drastic change in mood and inability to take pleasure in activities that the patient once enjoyed. Apathy, insomnia, poor attention span and prolonged low periods in mood are all symptomatic of a major depressive episode.'

Scott chewed on that. It certainly did sound like Gambit in the last six months since he woke from the coma, but still….. 'Do you know for sure that Gambit hasn't been sleeping, or that he no longer enjoys whatever it is he enjoys doing?'

'When was the last time Gambit was seen tinkering with his motorcycle, playing pool, or taunting Logan over a game of cards?' Hank fired back. Scott sighed and conceded the point.

'Alright, I admit that it sounds possible, but still, it might just be the break up.'

Hank shook his head, 'No Scott. I don't believe his recent estrangement from Rogue or the subsequent unpleasantness between them is a causal factor. It may be contributory, but it is more likely to be another symptom of the illness.' Hank tapped the ear piece of his spectacles against his furred lips.

'Remember this is a man who watched his wife and his brother die in his arms and gave no pronounced physical or emotional reaction.' Hank intoned solemnly. 'Until the last six months Gambit seemed to have a very shallow emotional palette; he ran the gamut from casual indifference to sardonic amusement and that was all.'

Scott snorted sourly, 'You're right. I guess I hadn't thought about it, but you have a point. Gambit's shown more emotion in the last six months, none of it good, than he has at anytime since Storm brought him to the mansion three years ago.'

Hank nodded, 'While as I am sure that Gambit's studied nonchalance and emotional indifference is nothing more than a carefully maintained attempt to keep people from seeing his true feelings, that in itself is telling. Gambit does not like to appear vulnerable even among those he is closest to, that he has been so demonstrative in his reactions to Rogue's departure and their subsequent break-up seems completely out of character.'

'You haven't spoken to Gambit directly about any of this?' Scott asked.

He did not know much about depression but he knew that it was an illness and that it could be as debilitating as any physical condition such as diabetes or epilepsy. That it was a mental illness made it harder; could Gambit be trusted on the team roster if he was, as Hank seemed to think, suffering from depression and therefore not in his right mind?

Hank sighed, 'I have spoken to him at length about his weight loss. Gambit knows he cannot afford to lose weight without it affecting his performance and his health. In the past he has taken my warnings seriously. Now he smiles and nods politely and pays no heed to a word I say.'

Hank almost growled with frustration. Scott nodded in sympathy. Growling was a response synonymous with mention of the name 'Gambit' for more than one X-man in the mansion.

'When I began to suspect that his recent weight loss might be connected with his bouts of insomnia, which he has admitted to, though it took a great deal of cajoling and persistence on my part, I tried to broach the subject of depression with him.' Hank's lips pursed. Scott frowned.

'What is it Hank?'

Hank drummed his sharp fingernails over the desk top, chewing almost aggressively on his glasses. He released his breath in an expulsive rush that stirred the papers on the desk. 'I asked him if he knew what a major depressive episode was.'

'And?'

Scott leaned forward, careful not to knock his elbows on the computer keyboard. He tried to imagine that particular conversation and found that he couldn't. Trying to have a straight forward conversation with Gambit was like pulling teeth sometimes and Hank, despite being an honest and open man, could be just as bad. Primarily because a thesaurus was often necessary just to understand him. Put the two of them together and, well, Scott found himself relieved that he hadn't been present after all.

Hank shook his head, eyes narrowed in something approaching anger. 'He smiled at me Scott, and said, and this is a direct quote, minus the accent of course, 'Don't worry Henry I'm not going to be throwing myself off the roof anytime soon. I got more manners than that; there no reason for you to be cleaning up this Cajun's mess.''

Scott blinked and sat back in Charles' chair, 'Do you think he's suicidal?'

Hank shook his head sadly not looking at Scott as he gathered the papers from the desk, 'With any diagnosis of major depression there is a risk of suicide. In Gambit's case I couldn't possibly say. I _think_ that his comment was his enigmatic way of alluding to the fact that, essentially, he knows that I know that he knows he has depression and that, as I had feared, he will not accept any manner of treatment from me to alleviate the condition.'

Scott shook his head. It was one thing to be suffering from an illness; it was another thing entirely to know you were unwell and not seek help, especially when that illness could impact on the lives of team mates. 'Why wouldn't he seek treatment? Depression is treatable, isn't it?'

'Indubitably,' Hank nodded. 'I am not a psychiatrist but I know there are a number of different and successful treatments. No, I think Gambit's unwillingness to seek help might be in part symptomatic of the illness but is more likely due to the regrettable fact that he does not trust anyone in these fair hallowed halls as far as he can throw us.'

Scott pursed his lips. 'He's asked to talk to me sometime tonight,' he began and saw Hank's visible surprise in response to this most unusual development.

'Indeed? That could be beneficial. There is the outside chance he will grant your words a fraction more credence than my own. Our Cajun friend does not hold the medical profession in high regard, I'm afraid.'

Scott rolled his eyes, once again confident no one could see the action through the visor, 'He doesn't hold any profession in high regard, Hank.'

Whatever Hank might have chosen to say in response was cut off by a perfunctory knock on the door. Hank met Scott's eyes and smiled faintly as he shuffled his papers and rose from the chair.

'Convenient timing, me thinks?'

Scott shook his head ruefully but remained seated behind the desk as Hank went to the door and opened to it to reveal Gambit leaning against the frame. Hank made the usual cheerful greetings and ushered Gambit in as he left the office. Gambit frowned after the doctor as he closed the door.

Steeling himself for a difficult conversation Scott gestured to the recently vacated visitor's chair. 'Take a seat Gambit.'


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Two: Resignation**

Gambit walked into the office but stopped halfway in. 'Non merci, I'll stand.' He said after a moment. Scott frowned.

'Why?'

Gambit slanted a sardonic smile and half shrug his way, 'I'm hopin' dis won't take long.'

The man was dressed in his civilian clothes, a black t-shirt and old jeans and Scott felt a tiny twitch of nameless anxiety when he saw that Gambit was holding his comm. badge in one hand, flipping it through his fingers.

'What did you want to talk about?' Scott asked.

There was an outside chance Gambit was going to do the hard work for him and admit that he wasn't coping too well at the moment, which would mean Scott just had to nod at the appropriate moments and tell him to go see Hank. Scott rather doubted the conversation would be that easy though…..or that he'd be that damned lucky.

Gambit seemed to be struggling with whatever it was he had come to say. Almost nervously he rubbed a thumb over the edge of the round comm. badge with the familiar red 'X' in the centre. After some kind of internal debate he squared his shoulders and walked up to the desk. Very deliberately he placed the comm. badge on the desk top in front of Scott.

'I don' know if anyone ever jus' done dis, din't seem to be any records to say so, but, basically, dis is my way of handin' in my resignation.' Gambit said eventually as he retreated a few steps away from the desk.

Scott stared at him, 'Excuse me?'

'I'm resignin',' Gambit explained flatly with another of those damnable shrugs, 'It's not like I ever been paid for dis shit, but I figure t'ree years, I owe you some kinda notice period for de team, non?' he shoved his hands into his pockets and gazed back at Scott expressionlessly.

Scott struggled to take this in, 'You want to leave the team?'

'Oui. Can go anytime, but like I said, figured I'd give you time to change de rotas and bring in a replacement or whatever.' Another shrug punctuated the end of the bland statement.

Scott struggled to categorise his reaction to this news. Gambit would not be the first member of the team to leave for pastures new. Hell all the original five Scott included, had left at one time or the other. If Scott was honest it wasn't even that surprising that Gambit didn't want to stay any longer; his reasons for staying as long as he had had always seemed somewhat tenuous. Still, Scott was somewhat surprised to find that what he felt in reaction to this 'resignation' was primarily anger.

'And if I say, as your team leader, that you can't leave?' he asked carefully.

Gambit once more shrugged at him and Scott gritted his teeth. The other man's facial expression did not so much as twitch. In fact he appeared almost bored. Scott was forcibly reminded once again why it was he and Gambit rarely conversed with one another.

'Don' see as how you can mon ami. I'm an adult, non? can't keep me here 'gainst my will.' The expression turned from insultingly bland to slyly curious, 'Din't t'ink you'd much care, anyhow. I figured y'all would be pleased to see de back of me.'

Scott let out a deep breath and nodded to the chair, 'Sit down Gambit.' He ordered and the other man did. That in itself was interesting.

Scott studied the man across the desk from him thoughtfully. With the echo of Hank's words in his mind Scott realised that Gambit was looking gaunt in the face, his always sharp cheekbones almost painfully pronounced and his skin pale. The man looked tired, and, quite frankly, decidedly miserable underneath the veneer of blank indifference that he had worn on his face from the moment they had met.

'Why do you want to quit the team?' Scott asked mildly.

Gambit wasn't stupid; in fact Scott had long held the opinion that Gambit was nowhere near as brash and uneducated as he often pretended to be. It would fit with the other man's character to decide to leave rather than be forced to admit a problem however. Could Gambit have anticipated Hank would come to Scott and so decided to cobble together this resignation in response? Scott somewhat doubted a man as secretive and proud as Gambit would look kindly on the idea of being thought of as emotionally ill.

The man in question gazed back at him with flat red eyes. 'You really need me to answer dat?'

Scott looked back at him calmly, more than prepared to play dumb if it meant getting something approximating truth from the other man. 'Yes, actually I do. You've lived here the best part of three years and now, suddenly, you want to leave. Have you even discussed this with Ororo?'

It was a good question and Gambit couldn't quite hide a wince at the mention of Ororo's name. The other man sighed and slumped in the chair, 'Stormy always tol' me I could leave if'n I was unhappy.'

'So that's the reason? You're just going to quit the team, at perhaps the worst possible time, because you're unhappy?'

Scott kept his true reaction hidden behind mocking words. It was funny how many of the tricks he'd developed in handling Wolverine worked on the Cajun. Prick them at their pride and you could win any argument, usually.

Apparently Gambit wasn't playing by the usual rules today because he didn't rise to the bait. Instead he just stared back at Scott, 'Pretty much.'

Scott tapped his fingers on the desk, 'No.'

Gambit blinked, 'No?'

Scott nodded watching Gambit's reaction carefully, 'That's right Gambit; you said you owed me a notice period, well I think you owe this team more than that.' He paused but the other man remained quiet and watchful. Scott continued, using his words to dig for the truth under the man's act.

'What were you planning on doing; serving out your notice and then disappearing? Or were you going back to the old day job?' Scott looked shrewdly at the other man, 'Is that it, Gambit? Perhaps you've decided fighting for mutant rights isn't fun anymore and you thought you'd go back to indiscriminately stealing from anyone and everyone?'

This got a reaction, like Scott had hoped, but not exactly the reaction he had expected. 'Mon dieu, Scott; I got a name use it!'

Gambit leapt up from the chair and slammed his hands down on either side of the desk so he could lean over it, looming above Scott. Scott, well used to attempts at physical intimidation, didn't turn a hair.

'I am a thief Scott Summers; more'n a mutant, I am a thief. My name is Remy Lebeau, not Gambit! Once I was one o' de best in de whole world.' The other man hung his head voice dropping and anger diminishing, 'I gave all dat up to join dis team……an' now I'm t'inkin' dat was one of de worst decisions of my life.'

The momentary anger left Gambit as quickly as it came and he slouched back in the chair, glaring impudently back at Scott like a naughty school boy.

Scott took a moment to decide how much of what Gambit had just said he should take seriously.

In the three years Gambit had served under him as part of the team, Scott and most of the X-men had come to view Gambit's reactions to any number of things as suspect. No one really knew if his temper tantrums were real or just a means of distraction. So much of Gambit was an act after all. One Scott had never truly seen the purpose of but had not viewed as anything he needed to address.

He was team leader of the X-men, maybe more than that in Charles' absence, but Scott had never viewed that position as a reason to tell his team members how to live their lives. Looking at Gambit now he wondered if perhaps some sort of intervention should have been attempted after all?

'Why now?' Scott asked carefully going back to the safer topic of Gambit's tendered 'resignation'.

'Why after three years are you only now starting to question your decision to join the team? You knew that the professor would not allow you to continue to ply your trade while living under his roof; it never seemed to bother you in the past. So why does it bother you now?'

Gambit curled his lip in annoyance, 'Why do you care, homme?' he snapped back.

'I figured you'd want me to sign somet'ing, or make a blood oath on de Wolverine's claws dat I'll not sell X-men secrets or whatever, an' den you jus' let me go. I did what you asked of me for t'ree years, now I want out. D'accord?'

Scott considered this. He had a fair idea what Hank would say about it too. Scott leaned back in the professor's chair. 'Gambit if you're going to bullshit me, at least do it convincingly.'

'Quoi?' Gambit blinked at him the picture of vacuous incomprehension. Scott was not impressed.

'Don't give me that, Gambit. Being an X-man is not a community service for bad little thieves. We are a team, but more than that, we are a family. You don't decide to walk out on your family without a damn good reason - and I don't believe your break up with Rogue is a reason. If you wanted her back you could have her.'

Gambit's expression bled out; if it had been a mask of emptiness before it was mannequin like now. A pair of sickeningly cynical red on black eyes stared back at him across the desk; the mask was cracking.

'You, Jeannie, Drake, le docteur an' Warren; you are family.' Gambit told him in a dead, flat voice. 'Stormy, Logan, alla dem dat are X-Factor or Excalibur, dem are family. Rogue, mebbe she's been around long enough to be family, but you an' I are not family. Me an' de X-men are not family.'

Scott pursed his lips. It was one of the great tenets of X-life that the teams were one large extended family. A constantly expanding and shifting family made up of people who might never have met and become close if it wasn't for their mutation, bound together by something greater than their differences. It was the epitome of Charles' dream. To hear Gambit's flat refusal of that facet of his life made Scott angry.

'If you really feel that way Gambit why on Earth did you stick around as long as you have? Why fight for the dream if…..'

Gambit's smile stopped his words. There was something hard and cold in those eyes.

'Dis ain't got a t'ing to do wit' mon professeur's dream. I like de dream; t'ink it's worth fightin' for.' He gave another one of those damnable shrugs, 'Don really t'ink it's an attainable goal but den, if a body gon dream dey might as well make it as impossible as dey can, non?'

Scott sighed and buried his own anger under years of self-restraint. The professor had always supported Gambit's membership in the X-men even when questions were raised about his loyalty (and there had been many incidences of that). In fact although Scott didn't pretend to understand it, he had always thought that Gambit and Charles had a strange sort of camaraderie. Gambit had never viewed Charles as a leader or father figure but he had seemed to respect him; they also used to play chess together.

Scott supposed he couldn't really deny that it was possible to adhere to Charles' dream and not feel a great sense of familial connection with the rest of the team, but it didn't seem overly probable. Scott decided to try another tack.

'Then what is this about Gambit? You and I might not be close, but you can't really think I'm going to buy that you think of Ororo as anything less than family? Or that you can just walk away from Rogue without a moment's regret.'

Gambit looked at him from behind his sullen mask, 'Why do you care?' he asked again, 'I'm not de first person dat ever wanted to quit dis team an' try livin' in de real world for a change. You give dem de third degree too?'

'Yes,' Scott lied and then clarified, 'in the past I haven't had to worry about what illegal activities a former team member is going to get up to. Do you honestly think I'm just going to let you leave and go back to crime? For Gods sake Gambit have you completely missed what the X-men stand for?'

Gambit laughed derisively and arched both expressive brows, 'You don' want to take dat road wit' me, mon ami. De X-men don' exactly hold up de letter o' de law either.' He smiled slyly and insouciantly at Scott, 'Done more property damage in de las' t'ree years den any other time in my life, for one. An' I'm not even gon' mention what your pup Cable gets up to, eh?'

Scott scowled but found he couldn't really say anything in rebuttal; he waited with gritted teeth for the gloating. Strangely instead of capitalising on Scott's momentary mis-step Gambit seemed to deflate. He sighed in long suffering fashion and flapped a long fingered hand in one of his, surprisingly irritating, Gallic gestures.

'What if I give you my word I'm not gon steal anyt'ing?' he asked tiredly.

Scott thought about this. Gambit was not a trustworthy person. This wasn't to say Scott believed he was completely untrustworthy like some had claimed; three years on the team had proved that he could be trusted to watch a teammate's back in battle, follow orders, and act in the interests of the X-men and the Dream. Still Gambit's notions of honour were not really compatible with his own and Scott was not sure what weight he could attach to Gambit's 'word'. Logan, he knew, would hold to a debt of honour no matter what, Gambit…..well, Scott wasn't sure Gambit held honour above his own survival, or his own profit.

Shaking his head Scott decided that he needed to take a more subtle approach. It would probably backfire but he just wasn't making any headway at all at the moment.

'Gambit, listen, now is a really bad time for you to leave. Sam is still not used to working on this team, Joseph is even less settled, and frankly I have a feeling the X-men are going to need to stick together during whatever Operation: Zero Tolerance throws at us.'

Gambit smirked at him, 'Cyke if'n you gon bullshit me, make it convincing, non?'

Scott could feel his patience waning, 'And what does that mean?' he asked precisely. Infuriatingly Gambit just grinned at him.

'It means dat you not gon convince me to stay for 'de good o' de team'.

He laughed and Scott reminded himself that it would look bad if he hit a subordinate. Of course if Gambit did quit that would make him fair game. Perhaps he should let the man 'resign' after all? When he looked back at the other man Gambit was watching him with knowing eyes.

'Truth is we both know dat de team work better if'n I'm not on it. Roguie don trust me an' I wan' t'kill Joseph mos' o' de time,' yet another shrug and Scott wondered, not for the first time, if it was some sort of physical tic Gambit had that made him punctuate every statement with a shrug.

'Henry t'ink's I'm nuts, Stormy keeps gettin' int' my business and it's makin' t'ings tense. Logan keeps warnin' me dat I don' be smellin' right an' he don like it.' Gambit smiled bitingly. 'Seem to me de writing's on de wall, oui?'

'Hank thinks your nuts?' Scott focused on this point. So Gambit had known precisely what Hank had been getting at then? This was interesting and maybe, just maybe, he could get to the bottom of the real reason Gambit wanted to run away.

Gambit's smile became downright condescending as he twisted around in the chair like an overgrown teenager so he could sit sideways with his legs dangling over one of the arms.

'Oui m'sieur, but you already know dat, don' you? You an' Henry havin' a nice lil' chat about dis Cajun's personal business before I came in.' Gambit sneered, 'I'm t'inkin' le Docteur need to brush up on de meanin' o' de Hippocratic oath.'

Scott frowned, 'And you need to learn that eavesdropping on private conversations is also a breach of confidentiality.'

He took a breath to help him keep calm. Talking to Gambit was never an enjoyable exercise. The man had a tendency to switch from being annoyingly obtuse to worryingly shrewd and then back again when it suited him and Scott often had to fight the urge to blast him into a million smirking pieces.

Gambit slithered over the arm of the chair, a manoeuvre that reminded Scott disturbingly of a strip tease act (and it was best not to ask how Scott knew what a strip tease act looked like – he still hadn't forgiven Warren for that eighteenth birthday 'surprise').

'Look, mon ami,' Gambit began in gratingly reasonable tone of voice, 'I'm quittin'. I want out o'dis team because it's not doin' me or anyone else no good; dat's de bottom line. Dere not'ing you can do to stop me dat ain't gon go 'gainst your precious principles.'

He flashed Scott a smile just this side of insubordination. Gambit hadn't been this badly behaved since the early days of his tenure with the team. 'I figure I owe you though, so I'll give you a week, den I'm gone. D'accord?'

Scott seethed internally. Part of him was ready to say goodbye and good riddance to Gambit, yet, he couldn't let the other man go without first knowing that he wasn't planning to hurt himself or anyone else, and where Gambit was concerned all bets were off which was more likely. Plus he'd never hear the end of it from Hank, and Ororo would probably kill him if he let Gambit walk out of here never to return.

'Those terms don't work for me, Gambit.' Scott said and watched a spark of exasperated annoyance light in Gambit's eyes before being carefully squelched under his usual bored nonchalance. Scott thought swiftly as he talked.

'You stay on the team a week. After that you go on a period of prolonged leave, we'll say a month to begin with, open to review after that. What this means is, you can leave the mansion if you want and go wherever it is you wish, but you keep your comm. badge with you and you call in at least once a day.'

Gambit opened his mouth on an immediate, angry refusal. Scott held up a forestalling hand, allowing just a flash of ruby red light to grow behind his visor as an unspoken warning to the other man. Gambit clamped his lips together angrily but subsided.

'If you don't report in to either myself, Ororo, or Hank, we will come after you. If I find out you have been involved in any kind of stealing, I will personally authorise both Logan and Bishop to drag you back here.'

Scott stared Gambit down, 'I want to make this very clear between us Gambit. The X-men took a risk letting you join, one that paid off I won't deny that, but don't expect us to trust _you_ anymore than you trust _us_.'

For a long tense moment Gambit just stared down at him from where he stood just behind the desk chair he had been lounging in. As usual Scott could not get a read on the other man's facial expressions. He had no idea if Gambit was furious or whether he had played right into the Cajun's hands.

'D'accord,' the other man said eventually. 'I'll accept dose conditions, if'n you except mine?'

Gambit didn't wait for him to reply before laying down his own stipulations, 'First no tryin' to use Cerebro to track where I am. Second, don bother callin' me if'n you get into trouble, because I'm not gon answer.'

Scott frowned and the Cajun shrugged almost apologetically, 'I want _out_, homme. I'm not gon get roped into savin' de damn world wit y'all.' He looked very keenly at Scott then, 'Third, don tell no one I'm goin' 'til I'm gone. Dem dat I want knowin' I'll tell myself.'

Scott steepled his fingers together, thinking furiously. 'I won't call you in for training or routine missions, but if X-men lives are in danger, I will call you and I expect you to respond if you are able.' He said and scowled the other man down when he made to speak.

'X-men lives take precedence, Gambit. Unless you're trying to tell me you wouldn't want to know if something happened to Ororo or Rogue?'

Gambit rolled his eyes as he turned to walk out of the office, back straight and head up.

'You can t'ink an' expect what you like; all o' you always done dat before anyhow. I tol' you how it's gon be. I'm gone, get used to it.'

The Cajun slammed out of the office with those last insolent words and Scott stared at the sleep-mode face of the computer. His eyes roved across the desk and then rooted to Gambit's comm. badge sitting on the desk top where the Cajun had conveniently forgotten to pick it back up. Scott grabbed up the badge and tapped it against the desk blotter.

'Fuck.' He muttered softly, where he knew no one could hear him. He reached out for his own comm. badge attached to his jacket.

'Wolverine - come to the office. There's a situation I need your opinion on.'


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Three: Consternation**

Spying was wrong. She knew that. She knew that spying on her ex was even worse in some ways. The last thing she needed was to be accused of being some kind of deranged and paranoid stalker. Still, considering whom it was she was spying on she felt justified. It was right to be paranoid when the subject was one Remy Lebeau.

Rogue gnawed on her bottom lip, twisting a curly lock of brown hair around her gloved finger. She stopped when she realised what she must look like. She might not like acting like a suspicious, vengeful bitch but looking and acting like an airhead bimbo was much, much worse. If she was honest, after all, she kind of was both suspicious and a bitch on occasion but she had never, ever been a bimbo. A girl had to have some standards, after all.

At least he wasn't perched on the roof tonight. It was damn hard to spy on him when he was perched up high. She kind of stood out like the proverbial flying gal in the moonlight when she watched him brood on the roof. No, it was much easier to spy on him when he was sprawled insensate across the couch in the den.

There was something going on with the man, she knew it. She just didn't know what it was. Curled up across the room from him in the old, lumpy armchair that was so much more comfortable than any of the rest of the furniture in the room, Rogue had what she saw as the perfect camouflage. The romance novel was open in her lap but she hadn't turned a page in at least twenty minutes.

Rogue shot a covert look across to the man stretched out as relaxed as could be on the couch. At least he'd had the grace to remove his shoes before he sprawled out, she thought sourly.

Lordy but the man had all the etiquette of a tomcat when 'Ro first dragged him home. Prowled around all night long, fell asleep wherever and whenever it suited him, feet all over the furnishings. It was a disgrace. Her lips quivered with a certain wistful fondness. He had slightly better manners now, but she wondered what had been lost in the exchange. At least back in the day he'd seemed happy – or maybe he'd just been better at faking it?

Rogue frowned. She really wished she could hate him and consign all thought of him to the ashes of yesterday. She wished that when she looked at him now she'd see some evidence of the cold blooded snake who whispered in her ear when she slept, telling her all his dark, vicious secrets and stealing them away again before she could wake and remember it all clearly.

She wished that when she looked at him she could believe what she saw and not be reminded of all the questions inside. Rogue scowled; it didn't help matters that he looked absolutely scrumptious over there on the couch. No, that was not helping at all. Rogue guiltily let her gaze rove over him.

He'd scoped up all the available cushions on the couch and mounded them under his head; all except one he held close to his chest like a velveteen shield. His feet were bare and stuck out of the ends of ragged jeans that were so well worn they were practically threadbare. His t-shirt had bunched under his body and the half-inch of exposed flesh around his naval was driving her mad.

She wanted to touch him.

She wanted to go over there and run her palm over that perfect line of flank. She wanted to feel his ribs under the run of her hand; the taut ridges of his stomach and abdomen tensing under her touch. She wanted to drag her thumb over the divots of his spine and watch him stretch out underneath her hands like a big old cat. She wanted the friction of his stubble as she brushed her fingertips along his jaw and stroked his lips.

Rogue closed her eyes and bowed her head over her book. It didn't do any good. Her fantasies did not need any visual aids. Three years and she pretty much had every contour of his body mapped out in her mind's eye. Even the parts she had never seen, she could at least imagine…..and oh my, did she ever.

Heat prickled across her skin; swirling deep down in her gut and tightening parts of her anatomy that ought to know better by now. What was the use of dreaming when the dream only added to the agony of real life?

Almost unthinkingly Rogue began to chew at the index fingertip of her gloved right hand. It was an old, old habit, one she had had for as long as she'd been forced to wear the stupid gloves. Most of the time she had it pretty much covered. She hid it from the rest of the house because it was childish and silly.

In fact the only person who knew she chewed on her gloves when she was anxious, or worried, or upset was the man who was now causing all those feelings inside her. That he could do this to her while asleep pissed her off no end.

She hated him so much. She really truly, absolutely despised him. She wanted to claw his face off because she was sure that if she managed to flay all the outer skin off of him the cold hearted lying snake beneath would be revealed. She wanted to expose that other self so badly, the one she had tasted when she'd kissed him in Israel; the one who had stolen all her hopes and dreams.

Rogue's teeth clamped down on her bottom lip hard. She loved him. She loved him in a way she had never believed herself capable of and she missed him daily. She missed the man she had thought he was.

She missed the lazy Sunday afternoons spent cooking together in the kitchen. She missed the rambunctious games of basketball and the fact that Remy never complained if she accidentally sent him flying across the asphalt after a too hard block. She missed the rambling and slightly incoherent conversations when she dosed him up with too much bourbon and he slipped an arm around her shoulders and told her about all the good, nice, normal things they would do together when the world was a better place.

Lordy she even missed his hissy-fits when she attempted to test out her mechanics skills on his bike and the look of horror he got on his face whenever she threatened to take his trench coat to the drycleaners and have it steam cleaned. She missed the way he looked at her, quiet and serious and so full of compassion, when she talked about the things she usually pretended not to remember; like how good it had felt throwing Carol Danvers off the Golden Gate Bridge, or the horror of watching Cody collapse at her feet.

Rogue swallowed hard on the huge lump in her throat. If only she could believe that the man she thought she knew was real. She could forgive him his shitty past if he'd just take away all the guilt and the secret fears that plagued her in the moonless night.

'Who are ya, really?' She whispered softly looking narrowly at his sleeping form. 'Are ya mah Remy, or was it all a lie?'

Kissing Remy in Israel had been a last gasp impulse. She had thought the world was ending and was damned if she was going out without one kiss. Still, if the Crystal Wave and all the rest of it had never happened she still would have ended up kissing him. It was just too much temptation, too much longing, and she wasn't that strong.

Rogue looked sadly at the sleeping man across from her; her snake-charmer, her knight in battered armour riding in to save her from her loneliness on a Harley instead of a white steed. She smiled for a moment but it did not last. Her fists curled as the book slipped from her lap.

Three years was a long, long time to be within arms reach of a man you loved passionately, almost crazily, and never once to know what he tasted like. She still remembered the agony and the ecstasy that had been a daily part of her life since the Cajun had slithered into her life and decided she was worth his time to get to know better.

Oh sure, she and Remy had experimented with the boundaries of 'no touching' in that time and discovered that there were all sorts of things that could be done with silk gloves and pre-planning. They kept quiet about it of course, people in the mansion spent too much time gossiping about the two of them anyhow, without adding fuel to the fire.

It hadn't been enough for Rogue though and those half touches never let her forget the truth.

All the experimentations in the world, all the patience and self-restraint, and all of his insistence that he could subsist with half a relationship for as long as it took couldn't help Rogue hide from the truth.

It didn't help because she had always known the truth; right from the first moment she had admitted to herself, that yes, she loved him. She had known in her heart of hearts that sooner or later she would break and just do it. That she would just take him in her arms and kiss him – and damn the consequences. She had known that she would kiss him and deep down inside she had known that it would hurt him.

She hadn't known that it would hurt her back.

'Got what ya deserve gal; ya knew the boy weren't no good.'

She whispered angrily to herself as she glared at him. It had become a mantra, something she reminded herself of every night before bed and every morning when she woke with his nightmares still clinging to the back of her thoughts.

When she had kissed him in Israel she hadn't really been thinking. There hadn't been time for thought, only action. Still had she had any expectations of what she'd get when her powers swallowed him whole, mind, body and soul, she had anticipated love.

That's what she had longed for when she kissed him; that she would know categorically and without any room for denial, that he loved her. She had wanted to know that no Belladonna or any other woman lived in his heart as she did. Oh god how she had longed to find proof of that.

Rogue had wanted to know what love tasted like; she had wanted to bask in the feeling and know what it was to be loved more than life itself. She had wanted to believe herself valued, even though she was broken.

'Shoulda known better, ain't nobody could love a gal like me.'

The romance novel was forgotten in her lap as she gnawed on her gloves; tears prickling her eyes and refracting the lighting in the room into watery prisms. Remy's sleeping form blurred behind a veil of tears, as if he was nothing more than a mirage.

Instead of love Rogue had found a poisonous pit of rage, grief, and loss inside his head; a skittering maelstrom of icy bitterness and howling guilt. She had drowned in his inner chaos and found nothing inside his thoughts that was even remotely recognisable. The sense of betrayal that had crashed over her as he had collapsed at her feet just like Cody, when the world started turning all over again, had been overwhelming.

Where had the love been, and the sense of being cherished? Why hadn't she felt it, and how dare he poison all her dreams with his nightmares? She had her own guilt; she didn't need his. How dare he be as broken and damaged as she was inside? How could he fix her if he was too scared to fix himself?

Rogue scrubbed angrily at her cheeks and rose from the chair, romance novel clasped loosely in her hand. She moved across the room, expecting a red on black eye to open a crack at her approach. It didn't; Remy lay there seemingly as defenceless as he had been when she left him comatose in the med bay. She looked down at him, itching to reach out and brush stray strands of hair from his brow.

'Ah'm sorry sugar.' She whispered.

And she was sorry. She was sorry that he was drowning and too god damned scared to admit he needed help. She was sorry that the only man who had ever tried to love her was broken and shattered inside worse than she had ever been. She was sorry that she wasn't able to forgive him for his weakness anymore than she could forgive herself for hers. She was sorry, so sorry, that she had failed him; failed him because she couldn't overcome his pain anymore than he could.

Rogue turned away and walked towards the doorway to the den. She hesitated in the threshold, one hand gripping the frame.

'It was a nice fantasy, sugar, at least while it lasted.'

A sob trapped in her throat Rogue hurried from the room without a backward glance. Therefore she did not see the red on black eyes that stared after her or hear his response.

'Oui chere, it was de best.'

* * *

Logan watched Rogue scurry down the hall from the den trailing salt tears in the wake of her scent and shook his head. That cleared that up at least; he'd thought he'd have to hunt down the Cajun but now he figured all he needed to do was backtrack Rogue's trail.

He found his quarry exactly where Rogue had left him; seemingly asleep in a nest of cushions sprawled over the couch. Except that Logan wasn't Rogue and he knew that the Cajun was far from asleep. The Cajun never slept in any of the communal parts of the mansion; at least not more than a light doze. To fall asleep in front of someone needed trust and Gumbo didn't trust anyone. Hell Gumbo didn't even trust himself.

Striding forward into the room Logan plunked down the bottle of Jack Daniels onto the coffee table right before Gambit's nose.

'Quit playin' possum, Gumbo. I know yer ain't sleeping.'

Red on black eyes snapped open and the man sat up in one smooth motion. Logan decided to take it as a good sign that the Cajun wasn't going to call his bluff about the sleeping bit. Gambit was a pain in the ass ninety percent of the time and Logan rarely had the patience for his head games.

'You want something homme?'

The voice was flat and the 'Th' was sounded correctly. Logan hid a slightly savage smile. Good; if Gumbo was laying off the accent it meant he wasn't in the mood for his usual games. Logan figured that meant he wouldn't have to smack the arrogant little jackass around tonight after all. He was vaguely disappointed by that, but then again the Cajun had been off his game for months. He wouldn't have been much of a challenge anyway.

'Saw Rogue light out of here cryin'.'

Logan watched the Cajun carefully as he laid out his opening _gambit_. As he expected the other man frowned and his scent shifted from wariness to light with the faintest pepper of rising temper. It just went to show Gumbo's head was truly fucked up; his defences were all over the place and his weak points were all on display. A year ago he wouldn't have given Logan such an obvious reaction.

'You gon give me shit about that?' Gambit snapped at him swinging his legs around to land on the floor. Logan shrugged.

'Ain't my business.'

Gambit curled his lip, 'Like that gon stop anyone in dis house.'

His eyes lit on the bottle of whiskey and the shot glasses Logan had deposited on the table moments ago; he quirked an eyebrow inquiringly.

Logan smirked, 'Heard a rumour yer were plannin' t'run out on the team?'

Gambit didn't react to that revelation, which suggested that he'd already anticipated that Cyclops would tell Logan about Gambit's 'resignation'. Logan wasn't surprised, but he was curious to see how the Cajun would react to his knowing. The other man rolled his eyes.

'So you decided to poison me, mon ami?' he asked acidly accent thickening up, 'Shit, Logan, after t'ree years I t'ought I'd earned de claws at least – or drain cleaner.' He shook his head mournfully, 'Anyt'ing better den dat crap.' He flicked his fingers at the whiskey.

Logan snorted darkly. 'I ain't wastin' the good stuff on no quitter.'

Gambit merely rolled his eyes again, 'Den why you here bothering me?'

Logan didn't immediately answer and instead poured two generous shots of whiskey into the glasses. Despite his protestations the Cajun downed his shot pretty damn quickly, but then Logan knew Gumbo drank like a fish.

'So yer goin' to come clean about what's up with yer?' he poured a refill for the both of them and watched the Cajun down it. The way the arrogant little asshole drank made him think that Gambit would be dead of cirrhosis of the liver by the age of forty; if he even lived that long.

Gambit leaned back into the couch cushions and watched Logan warily. 'What's goin' on here mon ami? You an' Scottie t'ink you can liquor me up so I'll spill my guts?' He shook his head sourly, 'hate to spoil your fun homme, but dis Cajun has never been dat stupid.'

Logan shrugged, unabashed, 'Yer complainin'?'

'It gon do me any good if'n I do?'

'Nope,' Logan flashed him a toothy grin as the Cajun insolently held out his glass for yet another refill. At least Gumbo was showing some balls tonight, instead of creeping around the place like a damned whipped dog as he had been for weeks.

'Yer didn't answer my question, boy; yer runnin' again?' He fixed his eyes on the Cajun who looked back at him flatly over the rim of his glass. Gumbo seemed to have his shit together at the moment. His scent wasn't betraying him like it usually did.

'You really t'ink I'd tell you one way or de other?'

'If yer know what's good for yer, yer will.' Logan pointed out reasonably. Gambit merely sneered and knocked back his drink. He refused to make eye contact with Logan. The Canadian watched him calmly, shrewdly.

He and Gumbo weren't friends, never had been, but Logan really didn't want to have to hunt the kid down and gut him because he went and switched sides. He'd seen too many allies become enemies in circumstances just like this.

Gumbo was crooked, and probably all kinds of fucked up in his head, but he wasn't cruel and he wasn't naturally treacherous. Sure, he lied through his teeth about almost everything from his favourite colour to serious shit like who he used to work for before he fell in with Ro, but then Logan wasn't fond of full disclosure either. True the Cajun refused to trust anyone with his secrets, even though Logan knew they were quietly killing him, and he flatly refused to ask for help but still, Logan knew what a stone cold killer smelled like and Gumbo weren't it.

None of that mattered much however. Logan wouldn't be here now if it wasn't for the fact that he didn't believe Gambit really wanted to leave anymore than Cyclops did. The Cajun needed to belong too damn badly to simply pick up and go just because his girl didn't want him no more.

Gumbo was like a wolf in the wild; he'd been cast out of his own pack too young and it had messed him up in the head. He wanted to pack with others like himself bad enough that Logan could smell the need and loneliness on his skin, but he didn't know how to do it anymore. He didn't know how to trust and that made Gumbo dangerous. Logan couldn't trust anyone at his back who didn't trust themselves and he sure as hell didn't want the Cajun running wild again with all the X-men's secrets in his head.

'I'm not running.' Gambit said softly putting the glass down on the table and finally meeting Logan's eyes.

'Leavin' ain't yer? Seems like runnin' t'me.'

Logan pointed out still reasonable, still watchful. Gambit shook his head then irritably swiped his bangs from his face. The Cajun had hacked off most of his mane a couple of months back and now the ends of his hair tangled at the nape of his neck. He had a helluva lot less hair to hide behind, Logan realised with a smirk.

'T'ain't runnin' homme; got no place left t'run,' the other man murmured very quietly. Logan's ears perked up.

'Somebody gunnin' fer yer?'

'No.'

Gambit said shortly and it wasn't a lie, but it wasn't exactly true either. The Cajun's scent had grown hot and muddied with emotion, but then Gumbo had never been able to control his emotions. Repress them, sure, control them, hell no. That was why Logan could read him so easily.

Logan thought back on what Cyclops had told him about Gumbo's 'resignation'. Cyke had also gone on to say that he thought something had spooked the Cajun into running after all these years. Hell the only reason Cyke figured the Cajun hadn't just vanished in the middle of the night was that he knew Storm or even Rogue wouldn't rest until they found him and dragged him back to the mansion by what was left of his hair.

Logan was inclined to agree with Cyclops (for once), though he figured Gambit might have wandered off on his own sooner or later - or maybe just kill himself. Logan had smelled the hopelessness in the Cajun's scent more than once when he watched Rogue with Joseph, and had figured Gumbo might decide death was preferable to another exile.

'Need to get away,' Gambit said very quietly not looking at Logan and the Canadian had a feeling the only reason Gambit was speaking at all was because he desperately needed to talk to someone.

'Won't do no good if yer runnin'' Logan pointed out quietly, 'won't solve anything.'

'It will if what I got t'face be beyond dese walls, no?'

Logan arched a brow, 'Yer plannin' something?'

Almost absently he poured more whiskey into both their glasses. He wasn't really trying to get the other man drunk. Gambit had strange tolerances to alcohol, like most mutants, and whiskey didn't do much to him. Still the action of pouring the drinks was more one of reassurance than anything else. To the Cajun's way of thinking if Logan was feeding him booze he was less likely to take a swing at the him and, through his sharp senses, Logan could tell Gumbo was getting angsty. He was either going to admit to something or bolt, and Logan figured he could take the other man down before he could run too far if it was the latter.

The Cajun glanced at him and then rather deliberately sat up straight on the couch. He did not touch his drink.

'Tell me something, m'sieur, if you got to thinking dat something bad outta your past was going to cause trouble, wouldn't you do whatever you had to do to deal wit' it?'

Logan cocked his head to the side. 'Probably,' he admitted. 'Don't mean goin' lone wolf is the best way to handle a problem though. Made that mistake before and paid for it.'

Gambit shrugged and picked up his drink; still he did not sip from it and just swirled the dark amber liquid around in the glass. 'What if you t'ought you'd need to get your hands dirty?' he asked and genuine curiosity entered his scent.

Logan shrugged, though he himself had grown tense. The Cajun's accent was just a ghost of its usual self and even his body language had shifted. Somehow, and in someway, the gloves had come off and Logan knew he wasn't dealing with the lovelorn slacker Gumbo usually pretended to be but instead might actually be dealing with the real deal.

It would make a change; the real Remy Lebeau had been AWOL inside his own body since he woke from the coma. Logan decided to answer the question honestly. It wasn't his way to lie anyway.

'Ain't never been afraid to do what needs doin'. Some folks 'round here would argue that, but I ain't never let that bother me either.'

He cocked his head to the side and continued thoughtfully, 'Outta respect for them though I wouldn't drag 'em into my mess if I could help it.'

Gambit surprised him by smiling beatifically, 'Exactement.'

Logan blinked, 'Shit is that it, Gumbo; you plannin' on bailin' on the team to settle a few personal scores?'

'Mebbe,' the other man shrugged and finally took a sip from his drink, 'It's not like you of all people can complain if'n I do, right? You done it yourself enough times even in de short while I been here.' Gambit gave him a challenging look then shrugged again, 'Least I'm not expectin' any of you to welcome me back once I'm done.'

The other man finished the last of his drink in one swallow and rose from the couch. He saluted Logan as he passed him, smirking. 'T'ank's for de drink mon ami, an' de pep talk. It's been real nice knowin' you.'

Logan watched the Cajun saunter out of the room. The young buck's scent had shifted dramatically. Instead of smelling like carrion on the wind, a wounded stray waiting for the final blow, Gumbo's scent was thick with confidence and certainty. Logan ground his teeth; instead of managing to talk Gambit out of leaving, or find out his reasons for going, Logan had just made him even more determined to go.

The Wolverine growled softly. He had the feeling that whatever Gumbo was planning was going to end in blood. He bared his teeth, something needed to be done and quick; if the Cajun was off the rails things could get real nasty, real fast.


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: Hello again, just a quick note of thanks to everyone reading this story. The feedback and response has been stupendous for just a handful of chapters and I'm hugely grateful. Also special thanks to Brazos for your reviews and for acting as my 'censor' for this story. I appreciate it. ;)_

* * *

**Chapter Four: Desperation**

The shift in the air currents tipped her off to her visitor's presence. Beyond that she had not heard or sensed a thing, even when her unannounced visitor had slipped inside through her locked door.

'Stormy, it's time. I'm done.'

Ororo Munroe hesitated; her fingers growing still on the stem of a perfect white rose glowing softly in the lavender darkness of her twilight draped loft. She did not turn around as her breath caught in her chest. A moment later warm hands landed upon her shoulders and she was enveloped in the familiar, quintessentially male, scent of her friend and former partner.

'Time for what, my friend?' She asked him as she turned in his arms and looked into his worryingly serious eyes. His lips twitched humourlessly.

'Don be playin' dumb, padnat. You know what I'm talking about.'

He wagged his finger at her in mock scold and then turned and deposited himself across her bed like a large, ill-mannered cat. Ororo followed him across the smooth, bare boards of her loft and settled demurely on the bed beside him.

'Remy….' She began unsure of how to continue. He reached up to clasp her hand and pulled it down against his heart. She could feel the warmth of his skin through the thin material of his t-shirt.

'You remember when you first dragged me back here, an' I wanted to go? You tol' me dat I had to give de teamwork t'ing a try.' He said quietly, eyes closed as he lay on his back across her bed. 'Well, Stormy, I did try but now it's time to go. I tried, but it din't work out.'

Ororo nibbled her lip; under her hand she could feel the steady beat of his heart. 'You are leaving, are you not?' she asked eventually still hoping she had misunderstood his words and meaning. He opened his eyes.

'Handed in my notice to Cyclops tonight; de man is none too happy wit' me.'

Ororo jerked her hand away from his grip and the warmth of his body. She turned her back on him, still seated on the edge of her bed. When he reached out a warm hand to stroke down her spine she flinched. He pulled his hand away.

'Stormy….'

'Do not call me that.' She snapped, infusing the old retort with real anger. She turned sharply to look at him. 'Why Remy, why now?'

'I'm unhappy, Stormy. You said I could leave if'n I was ever unhappy here.'

She bowed her head, 'Yes, I remember.'

He sat up in one smooth motion and wrapped his arms around her from behind. He ducked his head and rested his chin on her shoulder. The faint hint of whiskey on his breath gave Ororo some hope. Perhaps he was merely affected by drink; she knew he could become maudlin when inebriated on cheap whiskey.

'You have been drinking?' she asked allowing herself to settle into his arms, her body moulding into his. She did not ordinarily like much physical contact but Remy was an exception. He often was.

'Logan,' he snorted sourly, 'Cyke went an' tol' de man, even though I ask him not to go tellin' anyone. De homme t'ought he could dose me wit' Jack Daniels for my secrets.'

Ororo turned her head so that she could see just the glow of her friend's eyes, 'Whiskey?' she shook her head, 'I would have thought Logan would know better. I would have chosen Bourbon for the task.'

'Oui, Stormy, but den nobody ever accuse you of being a fool, no? Plus you know my tastes better den him.'

'How long?' Ororo asked as the silence descended again. She placed her own hands over his as they clasped around her mid-rift. She needed to know how long she had; she needed to know if she had any chance at all.

'Cyke tol' me I couldn' quit out right,' Remy said pulling away from her and reclining back against the Egyptian cotton pillows on her bed. 'He said he'd let me take 'leave' for a month, but dat I had to stay in contact wit' de team.'

Ororo frowned as she lay down across the bed beside her friend. 'Why? I have never heard him take such a tack with other departing members of the team.'

Remy smirked dryly as he absently ran his hand up and down her side. His fingers glided over the white silk of her shift dress before his hand settled warmly over her hip. 'He t'ink's I'm a security risk to de team, what wit' me bein' a professional thief an' jus' basic'lly bein' an untrustworthy scoundrel.' He rolled his eyes. Ororo frowned.

'Did he say that?'

'Not in so many words Stormy, but I know how to read between de lines.'

He shrugged lying down and reached out his free hand to cup her chin, wriggling his fingers to twine a lock of her hair around his palm.

'Don't help none dat Henry figured out about my lil' _problem_ an' talked to de homme before I got dere.'

Remy's eyes skittered away looking anywhere but at her for a moment. Ororo reached out to trace the line of his jaw with her fingertips and he looked up at her.

'I told you that you should simply tell Henry that you were already receiving treatment for your depression. It was foolish and stubborn on your part to believe that he would not find out.'

Ororo did not know if anyone else in the mansion knew that Remy had been battling depression, successfully or otherwise, for many months. He had made her promise not to tell anyone in the team, for fear that he would be stigmatised for being, as he put it, 'crazy in de head'. She had agreed not to say anything so long as he promised in return not to keep the facts of his illness from her. She had argued that she needed to know not just as his friend but also as co-leader of the X-men.

Now he looked at her irritably, 'Stormy, Henry is not mon Docteur. I don have to tell him anyt'ing no matter what he t'inks.'

Ororo sighed. She knew that Remy liked Henry as a person and a team mate, although they were not especially close. She also knew that Remy would never consider Henry to be his physician; he would never allow anyone he lived and worked with that much knowledge of him. Ororo knew that, she accepted it, but she did not like it.

'Is that why you wish to leave; because Henry and Cyclops know? I cannot believe that either man would betray your confidence anymore than I would.'

'Oui, Stormy; I know. Dat ain't it really.'

Remy sighed, rolling over onto his back once more. He curved an arm around Ororo's shoulders so he could scoop her up with him. Obligingly Ororo rested her head on his chest, his heartbeat under her ear. She reached out to wrap an arm around him. She would never snuggle with any other person as she did with Remy. Somehow he made her feel comfortable to cuddle like this without feeling that she must either relinquish some manner of control or worry that her actions would be misconstrued.

'What is the reason? Rogue?' she asked.

Inside her heart twisted with the thought of losing her friend, but she could not allow that to show. She would not scare him away with her own emotion and her own need. If her friend was ever to trust her with the truth about the darkness that so haunted him, she must first convince him that there was nothing he could say or do that would drive her away from him.

Remy sighed and her head rose and fell with his chest. He reached out almost absently to play with a long strand of her hair.

'Not gon pretend dat she's not a big part of why I'm miserable, Stormy. I'm not dat good a liar.' He added darkly. 'But she's not de whole reason either. Truth is, even if me an' her were good, I'd still have to go.'

'You will not tell me, will you?'

She asked sadly swallowing her own frustration as best she could. Nevertheless a stray breeze rustled the leaves of the plants filling the loft and billowed through the gauzy curtains at the window. Ororo took a deep breath, willing her emotions back under her control.

Remy was very still underneath her. He stopped playing with her hair. 'It's not trust, Stormy. It's not dat I don' trust you because, cherie, _I do_. As much as I can trust anybody I trust you. Please believe dat Stormy; believe _me_.'

Ororo lifted her head to look into his eyes and saw the sincerity there. She rose up so she could lean down over him, the longer tendrils of her hair falling past her shoulders to coil across his chest, almost luminescent white against the black cotton. His eyes burned into hers; it was important to him that she believed what he said.

'I do believe you Remy. Even when I know that you are lying to me, I believe _in_ you.' She closed her eyes sadly, 'Even as I have watched the darkness in you swallowing the light daily, I have kept faith in you.'

Her friends face twisted underneath her, guilt lancing across his features in a moment of unguarded shame. 'Oui,' he whispered. 'I know. I know dat you do.'

He shook his head placing his forearm over his eyes so she could not see them. She pulled the arm away and ignored the fact that his liquid black eyes were wetter than usual.

'I do not want to know for myself.' Ororo sat up on her knees, clasping his hand in hers. 'You must let it out Remy. Whatever haunts you; you must let it out.'

He shook his head, 'Non.'

'So you will go then?'

She looked at him, trying to find some hint to his reasons and the truths in his heart through his eyes.

'How long?' she repeated her earlier question. She had been well aware of his earlier evasion but knew better than to call him on it. 'How long before you leave us?'

He sighed, 'Tol' Scottie I'd stay out de week an' den hit de road.'

'A week?' Ororo was aghast. Remy watched her.

'I'm goin' Stormy, a week or a day, what diff'rence does it really make?'

'All the difference in the world,' She told him angrily and a number of petals fell from the roses across the room and the sound of leaves scraping together like dry silk filled the loft. The curtains fanned out in the rising breeze waving like mourning shrouds.

'Three years and you would leave all this in less than week? No, Remy. I will not allow that.'

For just a moment something cold and defiant filled his expression as he raised his brows sharply; it was an instinctive reaction to being ordered about or restricted in his wishes. Then that defiance faded quickly and he closed his eyes in submission.

'What do you want, Stormy?'

'What do I want?' she asked him, knowing that the quiver in her voice was audible and for just that instant not caring. Perhaps, after all, if he knew that the thought of his departure hurt her so much he would think better of it?

'Do you mean other than the truth and a promise that you will not leave me?'

His eyes snapped open as they both realised what she had said. He reached out to squeeze her hand.

'I'm not leaving _you_, Ororo.' He said and her name sounded strange uttered from his lips; he so seldom used it.

'I would never leave you. De team, oui, I done wit dem, but you I could never leave. Love you too much for dat. Even if we never see each other again, I'll carry you in here wit' me.' He thumped his chest over his heart with his hand.

Ororo blinked back her tears. She knew that no one in the mansion truly understood her bond with Remy. They accepted and respected that she would forever stand by him and support him, but they did not truly understand why she persisted in doing so even when Remy himself was determined to belittle his own lights and question his own worth.

'Do not go my friend, please.'

Ororo loved her friend but the reason she had always defended him and his place on the team was because she needed him. She needed to keep him with her.

'Stormy I have to. It's time.'

Ororo Munroe shook her head, mutely, stubbornly; regressing in that instant to the mindset of the frightened obstinate child she had been when they met. She needed her friend and her partner and would not allow him to leave her. She needed the man who had saved her from the Shadowking when she had lost herself; the man who had treated a thirteen year old child as an equal and followed her lead even into life threatening danger.

She needed Remy because Remy kept alive that facet of her being that was not controlled and aloof and ever watchful of her own emotions. He was the personification of the part of her that was thief and sneak; quicksilver guile and cunning, and laughter in the blackest of nights. All the things she had left behind to become Storm of the X-men.

'Why now? What darkness is so fearful that you must leave all that you have gained here in the mansion? Why will you not trust the X-men to help you fight this battle?' She demanded though she knew he would not give her the answer she craved; there was no answer good enough for this abandonment.

'Because I have to fight my own battles, Stormy; dere ain't nobody can do dat for me an' truly set me free. If'n I stay here I'm jus' gon be hidin' forever. No peace in dat, is dere?'

Ororo stared into his eyes. A part of her was so proud to hear him say such a thing and to see how far he had progressed from the shifty, cagey, suspicious and solitary lost soul he had been when they met. Another part of her silently wept to see the resolution to go burn so brightly in his shadowed eyes. Remy was the only one who kept her soul alive; how could she bear to let him go now?

'A month,' she said firmly, squeezing his hand and forcing him to look only into her eyes, 'Your word that you will stay, as part of this team, for one month more from this day. Promise that you will not leave before that date.'

He quirked an eyebrow, 'If'n I do, you gon let me go after de month is up?'

Ororo bit her lip, 'I will pray daily that you will change your mind but yes, I will honour your wishes and let you go if that is what you truly need.' She looked at him keenly. 'Give me your word Remy and I will abide by my own.'

He smiled faintly, tiredly, 'You gon take de word of a thief an' a liar?'

Ororo nodded firmly, 'Of course. It is the rarest of gifts; the word of honour of a liar and thief.'

She met his eyes, her own wet with tears she would not shed. 'You taught me well when we were thieves together, my friend. It is the honest who have honour to spare and to waste. A liar must abide by his word, for his has nothing else to trade with.'

Red on black eyes blinked up at her in a pale and drawn face. 'D'accord,' he whispered brokenly and raised her hand to his lips.

'My word as a thief and a liar: I will stay for one month from dis day an' not leave before dat time.'

He blinked at her once more, eyes shining with something other than their usual luminescence, 'I promise you dis, too, though mebbe dere come a day you won't believe it true. I promise dat in my heart, I have always tried, from de moment I met you, to be what you believe me to be: a good man.'

Ororo Munroe closed her eyes and let her tears fall as she dropped her head back onto his chest. She cried without making a sound as her friend stroked her hair and they both ignored the fact that he was crying too.

* * *

Lorna glanced at her watch and then looked across the shiny, sterile electronics lab where Forge appeared to be soldering a loose connection in his leg.

'Forge - I need some air. I won't be long and I'll keep my comm. badge on line.'

The man barely even looked up in acknowledgement. Lorna didn't take it personally; she had long known that Forge found machines easier to relate to than his fellow human beings.

As she walked through the Falls Edge complex in Virginia she glanced into the rec room to see Mystique curled up on the sofa obsessively watching recordings of Graydon Greed's presidential candidate rallies. Lorna frowned; that could not be healthy. Mystique was a sociopath, or close enough that it made no difference, and she truly hated her mutant hating son. Still, Lorna had bigger fish to fry right now.

Leaving the complex she took to the skies and raced the clouds for a few miles before setting down on the side of an old, deserted back road. A motorcycle was already idling at the side of the road. The rider raised one hand in laconic greeting and Lorna walked over.

'You should wear a helmet when you ride; unless I missed a memo you aren't invulnerable to physical harm and you don't have a healing factor. Getting killed in a spin-out isn't going to help matters.'

Gambit shrugged casually, leaning his forearms on the handlebars, 'S'pose dat depends on your perspective, non?' he asked ironically, 'Quick accidental death or long agonising death in Sinister's lab, eh? Dat's a hard choice.'

Lorna rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest, 'Has anyone ever told you that you are very annoying?'

'Often,' he grinned. 'I figure dey just jealous.'

Lorna chuckled. There was still a deep vein of nervousness and uncertainty between the two of them. They were still mostly strangers to one another and the circumstances of their recent conversations didn't exactly help matters, but still, Lorna rather liked the Cajun's company.

Over the last week, since their rendezvous in Washington, they had communicated through email and cell phone and Lorna was beginning to get an impression of who the real Remy was. He wasn't afraid to poke fun at himself and most of the time his arrogant comments were just an invitation to tease him. She wondered how most of the X-men in Westchester could have failed to realise that Gambit just didn't take himself all that seriously.

'So, how _did_ the resignation go?' She had known about his plans to quit the X-men but he'd been cagey in the details of how his announcement was received when she had asked over the phone.

'Scottie weren't happy.' Gambit shrugged, 'I t'ink he don like the idea dat anyone would dream of leavin' dat place more'n de idea that I want to clear out.'

Lorna thought about that then nodded slowly, 'I like Scott, but I've been present at too many of his fights with Alex not to see that he's totally unable to understand the real world, or why anyone would want to live in it.'

'D'accord. He tol' me I couldn't quit, but dat he'd let me go on 'leave'.'

Lorna frowned, 'Is that going to cause problems?'

'Non, figured he do dat. Said I'd stay on a week before clearin' out and den, when Stormy found out, I gave her a month to convince me not to go.'

He shrugged a slight frown on his face. Lorna might not know much about Gambit but she knew that he truly cared for Storm. She watched as he gathered his thoughts once more.

'Din't make any promises 'bout dat, beyond sayin' I'd stay de month. Played it so dat Cyclops, mon Stormy, an' Logan all t'ink I'm runnin' scared from somet'ing.'

'Which means that Scott will try and keep tabs on you, which is exactly what we want the X-men to do.' Lorna smiled ruefully, 'You really are good at manipulating people.'

Gambit smiled faintly but it had a bitter edge, 'De X-men are easy to manipulate; people who believe in t'ings usually are.' He shrugged again, 'Not somet'ing I'm proud of, but it's gotta be done.'

Lorna nodded as a gust of wind rattled up along the road kicking late summer dust and grit into her eyes and swirling her bobbed hair.

'Well, I don't have much to report. Forge barely notices anything that isn't government ops or made of electronic components. Wild Child's too busy feeling sorry for himself or mooning over Shard to notice much either and Shard is too busy fritzing out or short-circuiting to be that observant.' She shrugged causally, 'I'm pretty sure Mystique is plotting to assassinate her own son.'

'De senator?'

'The very same.'

Gambit arched an eyebrow thoughtfully. 'Good for her den.'

Lorna's lips twisted and she tried not to laugh, 'That's not a very _Xavierite_ thing to say.'

She pointed out waiting to find out what Gambit would say next. Sometimes believing only the best in people, in second chances and doing no harm, could be damned dull.

Gambit smirked, 'Non Mademoiselle, Xavier would be all for someone offing Graydon Creed, just so long as it can't be tracked back to mutants or his X-men. Mon Professeur's a realist; he just like people to t'ink he's a pacifist optimist because it looks better on de resume, oui?'

Lorna grinned, 'I'm so glad someone else thinks that.' She shook her head, 'That man scared the hell out of me when the X-men first found me. I respect him and all, sure, but I never understood why Jean and Scott and the rest treated him like a flawless saint.'

'A saint?' Gambit widened his eyes in mock horror, 'Non cherie, couldn't have handled livin' in de same house as one of _those_ for t'ree years. Visionary, sure, I give dat a go, a saint no.'

Lorna let the smile fall from her lips as another stiff breeze rose up. She wrapped her arms around herself rueing the fact that she had gone out in short sleeves. Gambit started to shrug out of his coat. Lorna arched an eyebrow.

'I hope you're just overly warm, because as an independent woman I won't be impressed to find out you're trying to give me your coat.'

Gambit hesitated in mid-motion and eyed her warily, 'So you be one of dose women dat got _views_, den?' he shrugged the coat back on. Lorna smiled wickedly.

'Do you have a problem with that Mr LeBeau?'

Gambit beamed at her, 'Hell no, cherie; you forgettin' I married an assassin an' dated a Rogue? Non, don't got a problem with an independent woman; dey useful t'ings.'

He arched his eyebrows challengingly. 'Now, a woman too stubborn to take a coat when she's cold, who den goes an' catches her death of pneumonia….well, dat I got some problems wit', oui?'

Lorna rolled her eyes but couldn't suppress a smile. She had heard that Remy LeBeau was a flirt but she hadn't heard that he was good at it. Despite the situation, despite the reason behind this clandestine meeting, she found herself actually having fun bickering with him. The smile slipped from her lips slowly; it had been a long time since anyone had treated her like a woman and a person and not as Polaris, the mutant freedom fighter and weapon.

'Creed's been acting…..well, I'd say weird but the man's a raving psychotic monster, so weird doesn't seem to do him justice.' Lorna said focusing on business instead of the sad state of affairs her life was in.

Gambit cocked his head to the side, all business too, 'Weird how?'

'I think he hears the clock like we do.' Lorna said simply. Gambit nodded warily.

'Do we really need him?' She asked after a moment's silence. Gambit watched her for a few seconds and then shrugged.

'What do you t'ink?' He asked carefully.

Lorna bristled for a moment, an angry retort along the lines of 'this is your plan, you tell me' rose to her lips. Then she studied the cant of his head and the look in his eyes and decided that he wasn't being difficult but instead was honestly interested in her opinion.

Lorna considered. She thought about everything that she and Gambit had discussed in Washington and over emails on a secure line. She thought about what she knew of Sinister, the Marauders, and Creed. She pursed her lips and shivered; this time however it had nothing to do with the cold breeze.

'I think we can't afford to leave him in the game if he isn't on our side. Still, even though the man's a monster and he deserves it, I'm not sure I could kill him.' She shook her head, 'If we start acting like Marauders we've lost before we've even begun.'

Gambit nodded, 'D'accord. Dat's what I was t'inkin'. Plus m'sieur 'Tooth is not dat easy to kill, an' we only gon get de one shot at it. If we take it an' fail it could ruin de whole plan.'

Lorna nodded. On the one hand, the girl who had been taken in by the Professor as a teen and indoctrinated into the 'killing is wrong' philosophy of the Dream rebelled at the thought of having such a calm discussion about the relative merits of cold blooded, pre-mediated murder. On the other hand this was Creed. He had more than earned his death - and the simply unavoidable fact was Xavier's teachings could not save her from Sinister.

'So we try and use him, so that he can't be used against us?' She sighed, 'With friends like that we barely need enemies.'

'Creed wants free of Sinister just as much as you an' me, Lorna.'

Gambit said calmly. He fished a cigarette out of his front pocket, lit it with a finger and sucked in a greedy lungful of smoke. Lorna wrinkled her nose but did not comment. At least he wasn't smoking in doors.

'De man likes to kill but he don like to be controlled. You, me, an' Creed are de only _'Marauders'_ dat ain't been cloned an' de only ones dat got away.'

'That won't stop him stabbing us in the back if he decides he can get away with it,' Lorna pointed out tartly.

She wasn't really arguing; she knew that this was the only way forward. Still the idea of working with Creed against Sinister rankled on her as much as being forced to work with him by the Government had.

Gambit smirked, 'So we don turn our backs on him, d'accord?'

Lorna looked out at the night. Her gaze passing by the dusty, pitted road, to the litter studied grass siding that led into a stand of trees. It was dusk and the sky was purple slashed with pink and gold. Crickets had begun to chirp and somewhere out there someone was burning leaves; she could smell it on the breeze.

'If we do this, that's it. No going back. We can't claim mind control or possession or any of the usual excuses. There will be no going back.' She whispered into the night.

'Always knew it would end dis way.' Gambit said quietly, carefully turning his head to blow the smoke from his cigarette away from her into the wind.

'It's different for you, cherie; you fightin' for your freedom. Me, it's not dat simple.' He shrugged, 'I weren' possessed de first time or anyt'ing like dat an' it's not like I was all dat _innocen'_ before Essex found me.'

He looked at her, red eyes strangely solemn. 'De X-men will want to forgive you for doin' what you got to do, Lorna. Dey won't turn you out.'

'And what about you?' Lorna asked quietly.

Deep down inside she knew that the X-men would let Alex Summers ex-girlfriend get away with a lot more than most. She might never have married Alex (mind control, possession, evil manipulations etc. had always gotten in the way – plus Lorna wasn't sure she wanted to marry) but as far as Jean and Scott were concerned she was family. Family got a pass on all sorts of bad behaviour.

She didn't know how she felt about that. It angered her that she wasn't judged on her own merits but instead by whom she had slept with, but at the same time she couldn't imagine how awful her life would have been if anyone in the team had blamed her for the things she had done with Malice inside her.

Looking into Gambit's eyes now she realised that he knew exactly what it felt like, and that he knew exactly what the X-men would do when they found out. It didn't seem fair to Lorna.

'Me?' He smiled at her faintly, tiredly, 'I get what I deserve. All us sinners do in de end, no?'

Remy had told her about his time with Sinister; the fix to his powers and the price exacted. In Lorna's opinion he had had no more choice than she had. He'd been messed with by Sinister and coerced into service – and he'd fought that control all the way. In contrast Lorna had become almost inseparably bonded with Malice……and maybe, just maybe, a part of her had liked the sense of power being feared had given her.

'I suppose it's ridiculous worrying about what the X-men will say, isn't it?'

She said softly, knowing there was nothing she could say to address the fact that in the court of X-men opinion Gambit had been guilty of something for years; it was just that his detractors had never had the details to hang him with.

'I mean either we do this or Sinister wins. If Sinister wins then we lose the X-men anyway. We become nothing but his pawns – his precious marauders.' Her lip curled.

'Damned if we do, damned it we don'.' Gambit chuckled darkly, 'Not'ing new dere, oui?'

'Oui,' Lorna smiled thinly. 'Alright; I'll keep watching Creed and I'll see what I can find out about his monitoring chips and restraints from Forge without drawing attention to myself.' She shrugged, 'I won't promise anything. Forge knows I have zero interest in gadgets unless they're metal and I can tear them to bits.'

Remy smiled, 'Jus' watch de pussycat, cherie. I can find out how to pick de locks on his cage when de time comes.'

He flicked the cigarette butt into the air where it popped in a shower of pinkish sparks on the wind. 'It's not like we can do anyt'ing yet. Move too fast an' Essex gon know, not to mention de X-men gon be all over me right now.'

'Oh please,' Lorna snapped, hands going to her hips in irritation. 'I'm not your floozy sidekick, Gambit. We figure out how to break Sabretooth out together. We work as a team. I'm not going to just sit back, watch, and let you 'boys' handle everything. If I'm going to betray my friends and my team mates I'm going to do it as a full partner. Got that?'

Gambit held both his hands up in mock surrender, though the smirk on his face ruined the effect. 'Oui, Lorna. I know. I just meant dat dere be not'ing either of us can do right now anyhow. Show our hand too quick an' we lose de pot. '

Lorna subsided and nodded briskly. 'Okay, just so we're clear.' She rolled her shoulders. Gambit cleared his throat, an oddly awkward action and she looked curiously back at him to find he was holding what looked like a jewellery case in his hands.

'It don' be de real one, but I figure it will do de trick.'

Lorna frowned and took the case; she opened it and swore passionately then shot Gambit a furious look.

'You'd better explain quick or I'm frying your brain with an electromagnetic pulse.' She warned.

Gambit shrugged wincing. 'Camouflage Lorna; dis is de misdirection. Weren't gon play it dis way but den you said you wanted to go all in.' He shrugged again, diffidently, 'Got a plan for bustin' Creed loose – and makin' sure de X-men and your X-Factor buddies jump to all de conclusions we want dem to.'

Lorna's gaze dropped from him to the contents of the jewellery box and then back again. Her swift mind ran through the possibilities and she realised what he was up to, 'Oh. Oh shit.'

'Oui; you don want to do it, jus' say Lorna an' we figure out another way.'

Lorna sighed, 'No, I said I was in this all the way and I meant it.' She squared her shoulders, 'Fine. We'll do it this way.' She looked up at him keenly, 'I suppose you want to wait until the month is up?'

Gambit looked just a little sheepish, 'Oui, promised mon Stormy.'

'Fine.' She said shortly, 'I guess I'll make preparations and wait then.' She started to turn away, jewellery box clasped in her hands. Gambit's voice stopped her.

'Mademoiselle?'

She turned back irritably, 'What?'

'T'ank you.' he said managing to sound contrite and sincere without seeming in any way false. 'Know dis not gon be easy for you, Lorna. But I don know how we gon to beat de Devil at his own game 'cept by playin' it better den him.'

Lorna smiled, the last of her irritation and nerves fading. She nodded. 'D'accord mon ami.'

More than anything else, that was the one thing that she took most reassurance from in all this; that Gambit wasn't asking anything of her that he wouldn't do himself. He wasn't asking her to take risks _for_ him, but with him. She wasn't fighting _for_ him, but with him. She and Gambit were facing the same foe, the same horrible fate, and risking everything they had to do it. If she couldn't trust that, she couldn't trust anything.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Five: Confrontation**

Anna Marie tossed and turned under the light powder blue cotton bed sheets. In her slumber she clutched Edgar the stuffed parrot to her chest. She whimpered in her dreams, face scrunching in a frown.

The scent of cigarette smoke permeated the room.

Anna Marie's eyes snapped open and she sat up in bed, heart pounding. Almost instinctively her gaze sought out the darkest corner of her bedroom. A pair of twin red embers gleamed out of the darkness at her. The neon ghost of blue cigarette smoke curliqued up towards the ceiling. The scent made her nose itch; part longing and part revulsion.

'Bad dreams chere?'

Reality and nightmare coalesced as the girl who was Anna Marie gave way to the woman who called herself only Rogue.

'Remy ya got no business bein' in mah room,' she hitched up her blankets around her like some sort of Victorian maiden and glowered at the shadow swathed, lounging figure. The red eyes just watched her. The spectral pale hand holding aloft the cigarette moved as the figure shifted back into the slipper chair he was occupying. She watched the cigarette's embers burn as he inhaled.

'Where else am I gon be chere? I live here.' He breathed out carelessly and cigarette fumes filled her room. His voice, torn velvet and gravel, rolled over her, taking physical possession of her personal space. Involuntarily Rogue clutched Edgar closer to her.

'Ya don't live here.' She whispered and then tried to make herself sound angry instead of scared, 'This is _mah_ room; mah space. Get outta here before ah throw ya out by ya hair.'

He chuckled and the sound slithered over the stillness of the night to brush against her skin raising goosebumps in its wake. He moved from the chair, all lanky elegance and easy grace. As he approached the bed Rogue realised her mistake.

The man in her room was not Gambit.

'Now chere, we both know dat's not gon be happenin', oui?'

The man who casually crossed before the end of her bed and went to stand by the window, pushing the curtains back with a finger to look out at the full moon, wore a suit jacket and dress pants. The unrelieved blackness of the outfit, combined with the long fall of his brown hair (Rogue hesitated over this fact – Remy had cut his hair almost two months back, hadn't he?) helped enforce the illusion that he was nothing more than a piece of the night made flesh and blood. Realisation like ice water ran through her veins.

'You!' Rogue scrabbled to sit up in her bed and ended up smacking into her headboard. 'Ya….ya just get outta here. Ah ain't talkin' ta ya.' She clapped her hands over her ears and ducked her head, squeezing her eyes tightly closed.

The bedsprings bounced as the intruder flopped down on the end of her bed, propping himself up on one elbow.

'Like dat's gon work.' He murmured in bored tones, flicking his cigarette ash onto the bed sheets. He smirked at her coldly, 'I'm livin' in your head girl. Closing your eyes and hopin' I'm gon go way isn't gon work.'

Rogue whimpered and pressed her face into the plush covering of Edgar's suede velvet breast. 'Ya ain't real, ya just a figment ah absorbed from Remy's mind. Ya don't have any power ovah me.' She whispered over and over as she started to rock.

The bedsprings moved again. A very real feeling hand reached out to touch her hair. She looked up without meaning to. The red eyes that looked back at her seemed almost sympathetic. Then he smiled and it was cold as a knife in the dark.

'If'n I don have any power, why you so scared to listen to me, eh?'

Rogue shook her head savagely, 'Leave me alone. Please, please leave me alone.' Tears dripped off her nose and soaked into Edgar's plumage. The spectre reached out and took her toy from her hands.

'Can't do dat chere.'

She watched as cool, indifferent red eyes looked incuriously at Edgar, tracing his felt beak with a finger and tapping his glass eyes bemusedly. Rogue desperately wanted to take back her favourite stuffed animal but she was afraid to touch him. She was afraid that if she showed it bothered her to see _him_ fondling Edgar he'd do something to hurt her toy. She knew he hated her after all; they all did.

The eyes flicked to her and seemed to read all the anxiety she was trying to hide clear as day. He handed the toy back to her. Rogue bit her lip, fingers curled into her bed sheets. She shook her head mutely. The intruder rolled his eyes disgustedly then carefully placed Edgar, unharmed, onto the bed beside her drawn up feet.

'I'm not gon hurt you chere,' he shook his tiredly head, 'mon dieu it's not like I can. I'm not'ing but a figment of your own mind. De only one here dat can hurt you, is you.'

'No,' she whispered, 'Ya lyin'. Carol hurt me. All o' ya hurt me.' she swiped at her tears gasping painfully as she tried to gain control of herself.

'Ah'm sorry. Ah didn't mean ta hurt ya, please, just leave me alone. Ah promise ah won't tell anyone 'bout……' she trailed off as she realised she couldn't quite recall what she almost thought she knew about his past. She frowned and then pushed past that moment's confusion.

The shadow Remy watched her blandly, vaguely contemptuous.

Rogue hated herself for pleading like this; for being so weak in the face of nothing more than a ghost phantom of Remy's personality in her mind, but she couldn't stand being haunted day and night by the phantom of Remy's past and she would do anything to make him go away and leave her in peace.

She still remembered what it had felt like to have Carol fighting for possession of her body and knowing that most of the X-men thought Ms Marvel had more right to it than she did. She could never forget what it had felt like a dozen and more times before when she'd touched someone and found them inside her head, angry, hurt, demanding that she pay for what she had not meant to do.

Even now, protected by gloves and full covering uniforms she still heard the echo of the angry, clamouring voices in her head; all the hatred and resentment and the ghosts trying to steal her body from her one stray thought at a time.

A warm hand reached out and cupped her tear soaked chin. She swallowed a squeak of fear as she realised that his skin was bare. Rogue stared wide eyed as she realised that she could feel the warmth and texture of his flesh against her cheek.

'Remy?'

'Oui, chere.' He moved withdrawing his hand a moment so he could shift position. He ended up sitting on the bed with his back against the headboard. Rogue flinched back and almost fell off the side of the bed.

'I'm not your enemy chere.' Deft fingers tangled into the sweaty, damp curls scudding over her forehead. With virtuoso dexterity he leaned over and picked up Edgar before placing the parrot into her lap. Reflexively she curled her arms around the toy and crushed it against her chest. She stared at him mutely.

'Now chere, you gon listen to what dis boy got to say?'

* * *

Lorna Dane sat on her unmade bed and the overturned shoe box sat next to her on the rumpled bedding; the Polaroid photo's scattered all about. A collage of broken dreams that was what it was. Fragments of a life she had never had the opportunity to live. In the photos a younger, more hopeful, Lorna smiled back at her from that bygone time.

She knew that nostalgia was fatal but she had little else to do; it had been almost three weeks since Remy had come to Virginia and although they'd kept in touch through email and cell phone those contacts had been necessarily brief. Remy was trying not to draw attention to himself until his month's notice period with the X-men was up, and bombing off to Virginia to meet with a woman who should have been a virtual stranger was not a good way of going under the radar.

Therefore Lorna had nothing to do but think; wallowing in anxiety and self-pity, and _waiting_. She hated it.

Absently Lorna reached for the bag of Hershey's Kisses and popped three of the unwrapped chocolates into her mouth at once. As she chewed noisily she picked up one photo of Alex and ran her thumb over his cheek. He smiled gently up at her even when she smeared his image with chocolate.

'Damn it.' Her attempt to clean the photo only ruined the image permanently and she threw the picture away from her in self-disgust. After a moment the bag of Kisses flew across the room to smack against the vanity mirror in a shower of shiny foil wrapped diet-breaking temptation.

Lorna bowed her head; her stomach roiled and she rolled off the bed and dived for the bathroom. She skidded to her knees just in time to throw up in the toilet bowl. Once she had finished dry retching she rested her forehead against the toilet seat and wept brokenly.

She had promised herself she would never, ever do this again. It was stupid and incredibly immature. After a few more moments silently berating herself Lorna stood up, flushed the toilet and washed her face and brushed her teeth. She gargled mouthwash and brushed her teeth a second time to rid herself of the acrid, foul taste of vomit. For a long moment she stared into her own face in the bathroom mirror.

'You're pathetic Lorna.' She hissed.

In the mirror the green haired woman snarled back and what a washed out, dull, unattractive hag she was. Just a green haired freak, not pretty and voluptuous like Jean, or serene and statuesque like Storm; no Lorna was muscular and broad shouldered and if it wasn't for her breasts she'd look mannish. Her features were plain and uninteresting; she didn't even have the distinction of being ugly. Hell, even her mutation was unoriginal; all it had done was condemn her to being a second rate Magneto knock-off.

'Oh for the love of god, what sort of bimbo are you?' she demanded of herself, turning away from the mirror angrily. Of all the things to be obsessing about right now, her looks should have been the last thing she thought about.

Distractedly Lorna walked over to the closet and pulled open the sliding doors. She needed a sweater or something. An extra layer of clothing that would hide the unsightly bulges and the masculine shape of her body. Her fingers brushed against the deliciously soft cashmere sweater Alex had bought her shortly before everything had fallen apart. She pulled it from the hanger and gazed at it.

A pale crystal blue she had been worried it would clash with her green hair and eyes but Alex had insisted it would look great. In fact he'd badgered her until she'd worn it with the low hanging, tight fitting jeans he was particularly partial to. Lorna smiled faintly remembering how even Forge had noticed the sweater and commented. For all of an hour Lorna had felt genuinely attractive; then she wondered if perhaps it was just the sweater everyone was admiring.

Her fingers bunched in the soft, fuzzy material of the sweater, nails poking through the stitching. After a moment she threw the sweater down so that it landed on the dusty floor of her closet. She wrenched out an old, fraying cable knit sweater in a dull shade of dark green and pulled it over her head. The shapeless garment hit her at mid-thigh and covered her like a sack. Lorna slammed her closet closed.

Alex was gone now. Brain-washed by yet another evil mutant mastermind determined to use him for their own ends. When Lorna had tried to get him back, break through the mind control, he'd tricked her into believing she had succeeded and then tried to vaporise her with his powers. Lorna closed her hot, but dry eyes, and leaned against the closed doors of her closet.

She'd been a fool to think a few heartfelt words of love from her would be enough to free Alex. It would have worked for Jean and Scott, but then they were the perfect couple, the perfect mutants. Lorna was nothing in comparison. No wonder Alex had been made to forget all about her so easily. She wasn't worth remembering.

The faint, consistent ticking in the back of her head grew momentarily louder and she winced. The sound was like Chinese water torture, not in and of itself horrible but it was pervasive and inescapable; a constant staccato beat like a second, mechanical pulse only she could hear. Vaguely she wondered if perhaps that was Sinister's master plan, to drive them all stark mad and mould their shattered psyche's as he saw fit.

The thought alone made her shudder; it sounded like the sort of twisted experimentation Sinister was capable of.

Almost sub-consciously Lorna drifted over to her vanity and sat down in the carved Normandy style chair that matched the rest of the furniture. She regarded her reflection without seeing it.

Oh, god, that _damned_ ticking. Why wouldn't it stop!

To hell with waiting; Remy would just have work around her. Lorna lurched forward and wrenched open the drawer of her vanity. She snatched up the jewellery box Remy had given her and pulled free the tatty black velvet choker with the grinning face motif from inside. She tied it around her throat.

Lorna met her reflection in the mirror and saw a vicious smile scythe into place like an angry gash across her face. The dull, tarnished gold of the choker caught in the light. The face looked like it was laughing.

'Hello sweetie, miss me?'

* * *

Rogue jerked her face from his, eyes widening. 'No!'

The Remy figment sighed turning away from her to light another cigarette. He tilted his head back and blew a perfect smoke ring. She watched, captivated, as his lips formed the ring that the smoke followed. She buried her face into Edgar's fluff to hide. She could still feel his sly smirk across her skin.

'Do you know what Tante Mattie taught me 'bout getting' rid of spooks, chere?'

His voice wrapped around her, casual and amused as his fingers danced up her flannel sleeve covered arm. Rogue shivered and curled more tightly into her protective ball. If she just ignored him eventually he'd fade away, disappearing into the deep pit she tried to bury all her figments into.

As if he'd heard that particular thought he snickered softly and his fingers continued to tap-dance up her arm to her shoulder; she felt the minute tugs as he played with the ends of her hair.

'Non chere, ignorin' de spirits is no way to get dem to leave. You got to listen to what dey got to say. Dey got business needs attendin' to, most times, an' dey need you to help dem do it.'

Rogue whipped her head around to face him. 'Ya ain't no spook.'

Instantly she regretted her action and turned away again, like a shy schoolgirl. Remy clucked his tongue in rebuke. She tried so hard to be strong, but how do you face down a foe that lives in your own head?

'Non I'm a shade, girl. A shade trapped in your head day in an' day out.' She felt his sharp exhalation of breath as it ruffled her hair.

'Mon dieu femme, you got any idea how claustrophobic it gets in dat head of yours; all dem other shades screaming dem selves hoarse tryin' to make you listen to dem?'

Rogue turned jaded eyes his way, 'Yeah sugar ah do; it's mah head after all.'

He had the grace to look just slightly chastened by that. 'D'accord. It sucks to be you chere. I get dat, but Rogue, if'n you just listened once an' a while….'

'No!' She clapped her hands over her ears again, 'No. Ya tryin' ta trick me. All of ya, y'all hate me because ah took ya lives from ya. Ya want me to suffer, ya want ta punish me.'

He arched his eyebrows and just looked at her for a long moment while he took a drag from his cigarette.

'Is dat what you t'ink, chere? You t'ink all us shades want you to hurt?' He laughed without humour, 'Damn girl, you makin' me look stable in comparison.'

Rogue bit down on her bottom lip so it wouldn't quiver. 'Ah took ya memories, ya secrets, everything from y'all. Why wouldn't ya want me ta pay for that?'

He rolled his eyes, 'Gee chere, let me t'ink about dat one.' He scoffed derisively, 'Ah oui, I know! Mebbe because it ain't your fault you were born wit' de crappy powers? Or mebbe because none of us shades in your head got us independent existences? Mon dieu, chere, we just imprints, memories! We ain't people.'

Rogue stiffened, 'The professah said……'

Remy waved his hand sharply, the cigarette caught between his fingers trailed a ribbon of blue smoke as he did so, 'Rogue, de professeur don know de first t'ing 'bout your powers; nobody does, dat's why nobody been able to fix dem.'

Rogue shook her head, 'Ah…..no, ah can't it's all too much….'

He cocked an eyebrow, 'Be honest now chere, do you even want to control dem powers of yours?'

Rogue blinked, 'Of course!' She stared at him aghast, 'How can ya think ah wouldn't want that?'

He shrugged snuffing out the cigarette butt with his fingers and then rubbing the burned tip of his finger and thumb together meditatively. Rogue was struck by how very different the Remy inside her head was to the one she knew; it was the same man, but this one wasn't trying to pretend anything. He was altogether sharper, harder, less forgiving and in a strange way much more real.

'Dat so?' He glanced at her sideways and examined the red diamond cufflinks on his jacket cuffs. Rogue frowned; the motif reminded her of something……something important. 'Dat's real int'restin' chere, because from where I be sittin' it don seem to me like you want to control your powers at all.'

Rogue gaped at him, all previous thoughts forgotten. The ghost Remy reached over and gently pushed her jaws closed. He smirked at her, 'Careful chere, don want to be catchin' any passin' flies, non?'

She pulled back, refusing to blush. 'How can ya say that? How can ya say that ah don't want ta control mah powers?'

'Because you don' do anyt'ing to learn to control dem.' He rolled his eyes, 'What you t'inkin' chere, dat you gon get visited by a good fairy one day and get your wish granted?'

'No of course not – ah…'

'You're afraid chere,' he interrupted, voice cool, velvet dark and pervasive. It brushed against her like smoke and fur and she shivered. 'You afraid dat de t'ing you dream about is just dat: a dream. Dat mebbe if'n you learn to touch, to kiss, to have sex -' Rogue jerked back and grew red at the blunt phrasing and Remy smirked at her.

'Oui chere, dat's what us grown ups call _makin' love_,' he shook his head at her mortification, 'Where was I? Ah, oui, you afraid dat touchin' an' all de rest of it mebbe isn't all you hopin' for; dat mebbe you better off wit'out it?'

'No….no that's….' Rogue trailed off, throat closing down and heart pounding in her ears. She did nothing as Remy reached out and took her cold, clammy hand in his.

'Tell me chere, what's touchin' ever brought you except pain?'

He stroked her hand by trailing just his fingertips across her palm. His red eyes glowed in the darkness, filling her world.

'You're supposed to be invulnerable, but you bleeding from so many wounds you don know what pleasure feels like.'

He rubbed his thumb in a firm stroke up each of her fingers then raised her wrist to his lips. She choked on her breath at the feel of his lips against her jumping pulse.

'Dere be no shame in it, chere. No one gon blame you, if'n you decide dat livin' wit' de gloves is de way you want to go.'

He pressed a kiss to the very centre of her palm and his eyes burned through her as he leaned over to brush his stubbled cheek against her skin. 'Dere don' be a body in dis world dat know what it is to live your life chere. Dere ain't a body got a right to judge you, except you.' He kissed each of her fingertips in turn, reverently, and she sobbed silently.

'But chere you got to decide once an' for all; either you gon control de power or you got to stop pretendin' you want de husband an' de kids an' all de pain dat lovin' another body brings wit' it. Nobody got de right to tell you what to do, but you ain't got de right to play wit' a homme's heart because you scared to admit de truth.'

Rogue tore her trembling hand from his grip, stung by his accusation. 'Ah'm not playin' ah….'

He moved catching her face between his palms and pulling her forward, something the real Remy could never do thanks to her superior strength; before Rogue could react his lips descended on hers.

The kiss was real, because it belonged in her dreams, in her nightmares, and in her memories. It was a kiss of the soul and it hurt like hell.

When he let her breathe again she was shaking and gasping for air but still he held her head immobile. He leaned forward but instead of kissing her again his cheek grazed past her own and he pressed his lips close to her ear. Rogue was enveloped in the scent of him; cigarette smoke and warm, comfortable solidity. She closed her eyes and took in a shaky breath.

'Love hurts chere,' he whispered, lips feather light against her ear, 'It makes you bleed, an' it makes you a fool. It leaves you wit'out your dignity an' it gives you de strength to topple mountains. But don't nobody _make_ you fall in love chere, an' don't nobody promise dat it gon last forever; I offered you my future an' I tried to spare you my past, dat's all. I sure as hell never lied to you.'

He withdrew, letting her go with his words scolding her thoughts and leaving her trembling. She watched as the shadow Remy, the Remy who was part a figment of the past and part a reflection of the truth the X-men weren't allowed to see, rose from the bed and straightened his suit jacket.

She noted the fine tailoring; the silk tie in black with the neon red pinprick highlights etched in. She noted again the strange cufflinks and for the first time, as he tossed his head to shake his bangs from his eyes, she thought she detected the faintest imprint of a diamond on his forehead. Something inside her shivered; she tried to hold on to the quiver of foreboding but it slipped away like quicksilver through her fingers.

'Is that what ya wanted ta say ta me?' She asked curiously, paradoxically put out now that the spectre was obviously planning on leaving. He glanced at her and for a moment, in the pale light of the moon filtering in from the window, his skin seemed waxen white and his eyes seemed like blood ice.

He smiled, and it was like a stranger, almost as if he had become someone else all over again. 'Mebbe, but I got a question before I go.'

'What?' she asked.

He looked at her keenly, 'Can you hear de ticking?'

Rogue blinked and then frowned; she opened her mouth to ask what he meant, then realised that she could hear something. Something that sounded like an old fashioned clock chiming somewhere in the back of her mind; she swallowed inaudibly.

'What does it mean?'

He gazed back at her dispassionately, 'For you chere?' he shrugged, 'Dunno. Guess dat gon depend on you.'

The shade of Remy brushed his hands down his suit jacket once more, glancing into her shaded mirror to check his appearance. With a satisfied nod he turned his back and started to fade into the shadows.

'Wait - Remy!' She reached for him.

He glanced back at her coolly quirking one eyebrow, 'Quoi?'

'What does the clock mean for ya, sugar?'

He smiled slyly, 'Now chere you don' really need me to answer dat.' He shook his head chidingly, 'You already got all de answers in your head; you just too fool scared an' stubborn to admit it.'

Rogue watched as he vanished into the darkness without a word. She shivered and turned towards the window where the cold draft was coming from. Her heart leapt to her throat and she froze. Staring in through the window glass Mr Sinister's eyes seemed to burn through the world. He smiled, revealing a mouth full of razor teeth that would make a piranha proud.

Rogue surged upwards in bed screaming. For the first time that night she was truly conscious. She screamed just one word.

'Remy!'

And still, distantly, she could hear the clock ticking.


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: Sorry to bother everyone again, but as of this chapter and the next batch, the language and violence quotient in this story racket up a fair bit; please, please let me know if any of you feel it is no longer appropriate for the 13+ age bracket. It's been a while since I was thirteen and I was a foul mouthed little madam so I don't really stand as a good example! ;)_

**Chapter Six: Anticipation**

Betsy Braddock was only mildly irritated to enter the Danger Room and find that the room was still in use even though it was already ten minutes into her pre-scheduled training time. The reason she was only mildly put out was because the person inconsiderate enough to have failed to vacate the room was one Remy Lebeau.

Perfect, Betsy smiled wolfishly, just the man she had been meaning to talk to. Although 'talk' may not be the appropriate word; interrogate, was perhaps more accurate.

She sauntered on soundless feet across the Danger Room, which had been programmed to resemble a real gymnasium with mats on the floor, vaulting boxes and a number of other gymnastics apparatus. Johnny Cash was walking the line from the small portable sound system Gambit had brought in with him. Betsy quirked an eyebrow amusedly; she hadn't pictured Gambit as a country music fan. However Cash did seem to suit him.

For a few moments Betsy merely watched the man work through a routine on the rings. It was time well spent; she watched the corded muscles of his arms as he swung, twisted and contorted his body with perfect control, taking all his body weight onto his braced arms. It was always valuable to learn an opponent's strengths and weaknesses and Betsy was very certain that Remy Lebeau was an opponent, not an ally.

Eyeing the man critically she watched him arch every muscle in his body from his toes to his fingers as he held himself upside down, arms braced and holding onto the aerial rings. Gambit's eyes were closed and his expression was closed down with a mixture of intense concentration and exertion.

After a moment he swung his body around to face the other way, still upside down, crossing one hand over the other to switch grips on the rings. A handful of seconds passed wherein he held the new position with nary a twitch in his taut muscles. Then he swung down and performed a number of fast, smooth loops, going end over end and switching hands on the rings in a dizzying demonstration of poise and acrobatic skill.

He ended the arc of movement with a back flip dismount very few Olympic gymnasts would ever dare to attempt. Gambit landed gracefully, knees bending to absorb the impact and back straight. Betsy leaned down to switch off the music player as Johnny began to descend into the ring of fire.

Gambit pivoted smoothly, one arm raised to throw a card over-arm. He blinked in surprise to see Betsy standing there. The telepath was rather pleased to see a fleeting look of consternation cross his sweaty features as he realised that not only had he allowed someone to creep up on him, but that he'd let _her _do it.

'Impressive set,' she said dryly, nodding to the still swinging rings. For a moment his only response was blank incomprehension. Then Gambit frowned suspiciously.

'Merci,' He said and Betsy was delighted to see just how wary and suspicious the thief was in her presence. Good, she thought, it would do the arrogant arse immeasurable good to know that she, at least, was not buying his act one bit.

'Puter end programme, sil vous plait.'

Gambit walked toward her, headed for his music player and the small bag of supplies he had brought in with him. Around them the Danger Room melted back into its default setting of sterile, contourless and faintly glowing metal walls. Gambit watched her as he approached and she did not back away. She regarded him coolly as he squatted down by his bag to withdraw a towel and wipe his face.

'Why do you say thank you to a machine?' She asked him after a moment and the man blinked up at her, clearly startled.

'Pardon?'

Betsy allowed herself a small, rather predatory smile, 'The computer, why do you thank it for following a command? It's an inanimate object; it does not need your gratitude.'

He shrugged, 'So? Mon Papa always taught me to say please an' t'ank you when someone does what you want of dem. De computer talks, it understands, whose to say it don' appreciate de common courtesies, eh?'

Betsy rolled her eyes, 'You've been watching too many Sci-fi films. Cerebro is not alive.'

Gambit actually smiled at this, 'You sure of dat, 'Liz'bet? Mebbe Cerebro gon surprise you one day an' dis Cajun gon be de only one dat survives because he was nice to de 'puter, non?'

'You're bloody mad.' She told him flatly and he chuckled.

'Dat seems to be de consensus view round here, oui.' He said ironically but Betsy did not get the joke, or the subtext.

Gambit stood, towel over his shoulders and bag in one hand, CD player under the other arm. 'Sorry 'bout over-runnin' on my session 'Liz'bet; I'll make sure de next person along knows to give you extra time.'

He nodded to her politely and headed for the door. Betsy thought for a moment then smiled to herself making a decision. 'Wait.'

'Oui?' He looked over his shoulder at her.

Betsy let her smile broaden, 'I'm the last person scheduled to use the room today. Why don't you take a shower and put your uniform on and we can spar?' She shrugged casually, still smiling, 'I prefer my sparring partners to be flesh and blood, after all.'

Gambit arched an eyebrow in surprise, 'All de better to bleed dem dat way, right cherie?' he drawled. Betsy smiled so that her teeth showed.

'Oh yes, yes indeed.' She rocked on the balls of her feet, 'Are you game then?'

For a long moment he just looked at her. Betsy waited calmly; smile never once faltering. Gambit had been leery of her since her uninvited mind probe directly after he wakened from his coma. The ensuing months and Betsy's own near fatal encounter with Sabretooth in the interim had done nothing to resolve the issues that mind probe had created between the pair; it had only served to delay any resolution. Betsy intended to address those issues right now. Assuming Gambit could be persuaded to play that was.

'So,' the man began as he turned back around to face her, still overburdened by his belongings, 'What are de terms for dis bout den?'

Betsy kept her triumph to herself as she made a show of considering the question. She didn't like Gambit and he didn't like her, and that dislike stemmed from the fact that he kept potentially dangerous secrets from the team. Betsy wanted to know what the man was truly hiding; she wanted to know that very badly. She also wanted a sparring partner she could cut loose with without fear of the consequences. As she didn't really care if Remy Lebeau lived or died he made the perfect candidate.

'No holds barred.' She said watching him like a cat watches a mouse, 'If you can do it, then do it. No inhibitions, no restrictions.' She smiled hugely, 'We fight until one of us gives in.'

In truth Betsy would prefer to fight until one of them, preferably _him_, simply could not get up ever again. She was tired of trying to restrain the lethal, wild, volatile desires in her mind and soul that the Crimson Dawn had left. She wanted to fight, to bleed, and to make someone else bleed too.

Still, admitting she wanted to inflict grievous bodily harm on a teammate would not encourage the man to play with her, so she settled for a total surrender clause. Gambit was proud and unscrupulous in battle; he wouldn't concede defeat until he was too battered to move anyway and that suited Betsy down to the ground.

Gambit had been watching her shrewdly for a whole minute or more and she watched now as a slight, dark smile curved his lips. She did not have to be a mind reader to know he liked those terms. Honourable combat bored him as much as it did her and Gambit had no compunction against hitting a woman; at least not one doing her level best to break every bone in his body that was.

'Powers?' He asked, eyes dancing with the prospect of the challenge. Betsy knew he must secretly want to silence her once and for all; especially as he could not know if she had found out his secret or not.

Betsy canted her head to the side, resettling her stance on the balls of her feet, 'If it can be thrown, bloody well throw it. I won't hold back if you don't.'

Gambit scoffed, 'Mais oui, I'll just bet you won'.' He looked at her cynically, 'An' you gon admit dat when your beau be beatin' down my door because we got rough wit' each other?'

'Don't tell me you're scared of Warren?' She asked him, widening her eyes mockingly. It was no secret that Warren thought Gambit contemptible trash and Gambit thought Warren was a useless silver-spoon lightweight in return.

Gambit gave her a look of bored contempt in return. 'Not likely, Betts,' he rolled his coldly cynical eyes, 'Jus' seems to me dat mebbe I'm being set up, dat's all.'

'Set up?' She asked faux surprised. 'What would make you think that?' she batted her eyelashes. 'A guilty conscience perhaps; or does this premise merely remind you of one of your own underhanded scams, thief?' she smiled sweetly.

Gambit shook his head and his red eyes turned cruel as his lips curled up coldly. 'You're a bitch cherie, an' I'm not gon get de blame because you're frustrated wit' yer sex life an' need de relief.'

'And you are a pathological liar and conman.' Betsy was not perturbed by the insult, anymore than Gambit had been by her slur on his former 'profession'. 'One who has no sex life to speak of whatsoever, I might add.'

Her smile was as cruel as his. 'Tell me Gambit, what does it feel like watching Rogue snuggle up to Joseph? It must hurt to find yourself so easily replaced, especially by a man who might well be Magneto.'

She began to pace, the beginnings of a circling movement. Gambit dropped into a smooth crouch so he could put his belongings on the ground and leave his hands free. He smiled at her, snake like and cold.

'You forgettin' Betts, liars and conmen don' have feelin's.' He shrugged, 'Still, bet I don' feel as bad as you did when Scottie knocked you back dat one time, eh? De Birdy makes a poor consolation prize, non?'

Betsy blinked and instantly regretted the action. She hadn't thought Gambit knew about her brief, Kwannon influenced, infatuation with Cyclops. Gambit's smile, gloating and sharp, told her clearly that he knew his barb had hit home.

The two began circling each other, neither prepared to give the other their back. 'Touche.' She admitted and he saluted her dryly. 'But I'm not done yet, you slimy sod.'

Gambit did not have time to say anything in response to that as Betsy addressed the computer system.

'Computer, simulation Gamma-beta eleven: the Morlock tunnels.'

She smiled as she watched all the blood leave Gambit's face. 'Sil vous plait,' she added purely for vindictiveness and a flare of unadulterated hatred lit in those red eyes of his.

'Fuck no,' she heard him gasp sounding almost pained as in an instant the Danger Room became a scene of slaughter and chaos straight out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting.

The acrid scent of smoke filled their nostrils from special filters in the room and the walls closed in on them becoming the condemned subway tunnels and storm drains that were once the home of the Morlocks and later served as the site of their destruction.

Gambit stared at her across the divide of horror and pain perfectly re-created by the Danger Room's computer and Betsy smiled. Now she could be sure there would blood in this bout.

'Shall we begin, _Marauder_?' She asked him sweetly.

She bowed to him then, sash swaying at her waist. She did not duck her head however but instead kept her eyes rooted to him. Gambit's face was completely immobile and she could not penetrate his shields to read his thoughts, but the paleness of his skin and the blazing luminescence of his eyes spoke volumes.

Gambit rolled his shoulders and, careful not to break eye contact, knelt down to pull his bo-staff from his bag. The bag and the CD player stood out incongruous as the proverbial sore thumb in the midst of the reconstructed devastation of the tunnels.

Betsy waited while Gambit moved his belongings out of the immediate vicinity. She noted with a certain glee that he rather deliberately wasn't looking around him at the blood spattered walls or the holographic bodies at their feet.

Gambit finally turned around to face her, coming back to where he had been standing. His bo-staff extended to its full length and he twirled it to get the balance right. He shifted his stance, bare foot and dressed only in the sweat pants and tank top he had been wearing for his session. Betsy adjusted her stance as well, muscles quivering with anticipation.

Her opponent smiled at her bitter and caustic, 'Oui Psylocke, let's do dis.'

* * *

Threnody clawed at the restraints holding her wrists immobile with desperate plucking fingers. She mewled helplessly; even with her long, sharp nails she could not reach the wrist restraints of the same hand. She was helpless, held pinned in the machine, electrodes and wires sprouting from her head and her chest like mechanical warts. Tears and sweat mingled and trailed down her cheeks; her whole body was covered in a thin patina of perspiration.

'Oooooh, ooooh please…….' Her eyes rolled back in her head. It was killing her; it was killing her!

Her knees trembled, the restraints holding her immobile and upright in the machine clamped around her lower thigh, just above the knee joint. Her toes curled under and scraped across the metal floor of the alcove she was shackled to. It was too much, oh, it was too much.

She could taste the death on her tongue. So many deaths, so many last breaths, so many agonised gurgles as life rushed free of ruined, bleeding bodies. Oh, it was killing her. She hated it all. She hated the waiting.

She smacked her head back against the wall of the machine she was chained to, pounding the back of her skull against sheet metal in her frustration. Oh, the anticipation was killing her. Why wouldn't they just die already?

Threnody wept and shuddered, body reacting to the last gasps and convulsions, the desperate fleeting heartbeats and strangled inhalations of hundreds of dying people. Some died of disease, their deaths slow, protracted, the taste of their demise like rich, mature cheddar on her tongue, filled with the nuances of a million tiny pains and humiliations until the final moment of release. Others still died of violence and their bodies erupted with riotous colour as their life force, vital and pulsing, rocketed out of torn and bullet riddled carcasses. Even more died of old age; quiet gentle deaths, the spirits sloughing free of their bodies with a whisper and a sigh.

It didn't really matter how they died, however, because Threnody felt them all. Every death, every life ending. She saw it, felt it, swallowing the power of death in screaming, rapturous ecstatic horror. Over and over again, every day, she absorbed death chained to this machine.

'Ooooh, oooooohhhh, yessssss.'

Threnody arched and convulsed before her body went limp in her restraints, eyes fluttering as she shuddered on the edge of consciousness. They had died. The old man with the heart condition, the OD case on life support and the mutant girl of Legacy; they had all died.

Across the laboratory Sinister arched an eyebrow and watched as Threnody subsided into silence finally. He nodded to himself and turned back to his monitors and calculations. Data strands glowed neon bright and cold across the screens; over a million lives condensed into their most basic biological components. An entire history of Homo-superior transformed into equations and algorithms.

Sinister smiled as he withdrew an antique fob watch from his belt and consulted it thoughtfully. He tapped one sickly pale finger against the mother-of-pearl face, the black minute and hour hand standing out in stark contrast. All was going precisely as he had planned. Soon it would be time to call his wayward subjects back to the fold.

'Ooooohhhhhh……' Sinister looked over with mild irritation to the half-conscious girl in his machine; he shook his head in an almost irritated gesture. Threnody was barely worth the cost of her maintenance. He would have to consider whether it would be a prudent and efficient use of resources to keep the woman alive once his Marauders had returned to him.

Sinister turned his attention once more to the pocket watch while his right hand absently stroked over the armrest of his chair. Lebeau had been problematic and proved surprisingly difficult to control the first time, despite the work Sinister had put into his training and conditioning. Still Lebeau had been useful even when he had tried his level best not to be.

Sinister half smiled in amusement, remembering the brief but productive time that the thief had been under his command. Lebeau, the perennial underachiever, a man afraid of his own talents, had nevertheless proved to be an asset Sinister wanted back under his control. He was wasted with the X-men and while Sinister did not necessarily object to his favourite tool's close proximity to Summers and Grey (even he could not have engineered such a fortuitous coincidence as Gambit's joining the X-men) he could not deny that it was having a detrimental affect on Lebeau's development.

The man was growing a severely restrictive conscience. He would soon be rendered completely inoperative by such a nebulous and transitory affectation as guilt.

Yes, better by far to extract the thief from the X-men while Xavier was absent. He would likely not gain a better opportunity than this and all opportunity would be lost if Xavier was to return unexpectedly. Still, he would have to time things delicately. Lebeau was a contrary creature and he had miscalculated once already in his handling of the man. Losing the thief after the Morlock eradication had been…..unfortunate.

Yes, the being once known as Nathaniel Essex thought cold red eyes rooted to the moaning girl in restraints across the room, once his first and foremost Marauder was back in his service he would be able to dispense with lesser vassals such as Threnody forthwith.

In the depths of his control centre, surrounded by the fruits of his labours and with his plans ethereal but growing more concrete in the very air around him, Sinister began to chuckle; a sound like sulphuric acid eating into metal. Yes, indeed, the anticipation was quite delectable.

* * *

Victor Creed was not a happy man. He watched the little wannabe prick Wild Child with a certain amused contempt. It disgusted him that things had reached this point; he was being guarded by a mangy little punk who was more likely to poke an eye out with his own claws than he was to do any damage.

'Hey kid, why don't you come over here and I'll arm wrestle yer?' Creed grinned but to his immense annoyance Wild Child continued to ignore him. In fact the kid pretended to be absorbed in whatever was showing on the portable TV in his clawed mitts.

Creed sneered, and strained his hearing, 'Project Runway?' he cackled, 'What are yer punk, a damn fag?'

Silence still. Creed rested on his haunches and considered how to best lay into the boy's psyche. If he couldn't rend the prick's body limb from limb he'd settled for tearing into his confidence, ripping out his secret fears, and revelling in them.

Fuck, he needed the entertainment. He was so damned bored down here.

This was all that bastard Forge's fault. The chip in his head that made even the thought of perpetrating real violence on any of the X-Factor losers was a sweet piece of work. Oh yes, Creed could admit that. He'd even tell Forge that his gadget was real smooth as he gutted the smug, superior Injun little asshole. Oh yeah, he could see it now; the hot slither of intestines sliding free, the look of fear in the man's eyes just before he plucked them out.

Creed growled and snarled as a sharp jab of pain rocked through him; fucking chip. Fucking government; he'd get the thing out of him soon, tear it out of his own head if he had the chance. Then they'd see who had the last laugh. Victor Creed was nobody's dog to heel.

Squatting down on the tiled floor of the basement 'room' come cell he was now forced to live in Creed absently scraped his claws across the floor. The sharp, squealing noises plucked at his nerves and he knew that dump punk Wild Child was just as affected. He glared at Creed from across the room. Still the kid didn't even have the stones to do anything about it. Creed snickered.

The hydraulic swoosh of the door opening attracted both feral's attention. Sabretooth grinned toothily to see the frail Polaris walk into the room. She was wearing a hideous fuzzy green woollen sweater and….hmmmm, was that purple leggings and black knee high boots? Creed quirked a grizzled eyebrow; what was going on here then?

Polaris gave him no more than a cold look before turning to face Wild Child.

'Hey Kyle, you want to knock off kitty-cat duty early? It's my shift in fifteen minutes and I don't have anything better to do.'

Creed decided to ignore the name calling for the moment. There was something off with the frail's scent. His curiosity was piqued. Maybe he was in for some entertainment after all. Anything was better than another minute with the skinny himbo. He hated the scrawny little wastrel; he hated a lot of people.

Wild Child looked like a puppy who'd just had his belly rubbed. Creed curled his lip in utter contempt. Some people weren't even worth killing. This little runt was one of them. Or maybe Creed would kill him and just not tell anyone he'd done it; not like it was anything to cheer about, right?

'Really? That would be great, Lorna.' The puppy bounced on his feet clutching his portable TV in his hands.

'Hey, but, I mean, do you want company?' Wild Child jerked his thumb towards Creed and Victor had a moment to fantasise about biting it off before a jolt of pain ran through him; fucking chip, 'Creed's not exactly stellar company.'

Wild Child smirked at him. Creed flipped him off with one claw. Lorna ignored them both.

'Don't worry about it, Kyle. I know how to handle Victor.'

Creed blinked then he frowned. He recognised that inflection on his name. Hell, there were only a few people who ever dared call him by his first name. Polaris had never done it – but Malice had.

'Oh okay, well just shout if you change your mind.' The puppy left. Creed barely noticed; he was watching Polaris.

As soon as Wild Child left the woman stalked over to the door and placed her palm to the control panel. Victor caught the scent of Ozone that always accompanied the use of Polaris' magnetic powers. He didn't know what she did but somehow he knew that the door wasn't going to be opening anytime soon.

He found himself hunkering back against the wall and immediately stopped himself. Creed was a lot of things, most of them loathsome and reprehensible, but he wasn't a fool. He knew he was in trouble, though he'd kill anyone who dared to say that Victor Creed could ever know fear.

Sabretooth had heard the clock ticking and he knew what it meant. Fuck that's the only reason he'd let the X-punks play their mind games with him and lock him up. He'd figured the do-gooders could run interference between him and Sinister. Of course there had been some problems with the plan from the start, but Creed had figured what worked for the Cajun prick could work for him.

Polaris turned around and grinned at him and the expression wasn't hers. 'Hello sweet-ums, didya miss me?'

She strutted towards him, hips swinging in a hooker's parade. She pulled the ugly sweater off as she approached letting it drop to the ground. The outfit underneath was skin tight purple and black veined dark green with a high, arched black collar; Malice's colours, Malice's voice, Malice's walk and Malice's collar around her neck.

'Fuck.'

Creed hissed as he now realised that he was a moron to think that Xavier's pets would be able to keep Sinister at bay. Hell, half of them were Sinister's property anyway, even if they were too damn dumb to believe it.

Malice smiled at him, 'Not now Sweetie.'

She raised one hand, crackling greenish energy coruscating from her palm. Her eyes danced and her painted lips parted so she could almost delicately lick her top lip.

'Now you're going to bleed for me.'

The electromagnetic pulse hit Creed dead centre in the chest. He flew into the wall and bounced off, claws scrambling against the tiled floor as the synapse fire of the pulse wave threatened to give him a stroke.

Malice straddled him, her six inch heels grinding into the tiled floor with squeaks and high pitched squeals. Her hand fisted into the wild mane of Creed's hair and jerked his head up and back. She purred into his ear.

'Poor Mr pussy cat had his claws clipped back, did he?' she simpered as another jolt of magnetic energy rocked through him. 'Pooooooor baaaaaabyyyyyy.'

Her laughter was just audible over the thunder of his blood in his head as his brain crashed under the assault of her powers. After a moment his own healing factor began to combat the sensation but Malice was unperturbed.

'The big, bad Sabretooth has lost his claws.' She sing-songed in a false little girl voice, 'We're going to have to do something about that; yes we are. What use is a Sabretooth without his teeth and claws; right?'

Creed was just conscious enough to be surprised by the sudden change in her voice. That last sentenced didn't sound like Malice, but instead like Polaris. Still Victor Creed didn't have time to react to the strangeness of the situation before yet another magnetic pulse reached into his head, seeking out the chip Forge had placed in his brain to make him tame.

Even through the agony Creed smiled. Soon, soon he'd be free and then he'd kill every single one of them; X-factor, the X-men, the Marauders and Sinister. They'd all pay as they danced on the end of his claws.

Somewhere both near and far away, a clock was ticking and time was running out.


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: Message to Joi De Vivre: mind-rape Uncanny Xmen 312-315, I think and the tiny scene with the pickpocketing was in Gambit solo series issue one I believe. The one that came out in 1999 and ran for 25 issues; hope that helps! ;) P.S: Slightly and Sleepless welcome and thank you for the reviews!_

**Chapter Seven: Defection**

Betsy Braddock pivoted and spun, leg spinning and arm drawn back with Psi-blade unsheathed. She slammed her fist towards her quarry, looking to smash her blade right through his defences.

Gambit twisted at the last instant, freeing an arm from her arm-lock and deflecting the blow. Wrenching free of her and the tunnel wall he leapt, twisted in mid-air and returned fire with a volley of cards, retrieved from his sweat pants pocket. Betsy instantly melted into shadow to avoid the explosive impact of the projectile.

Her opponent had an answer to her shadow phasing; he slammed both hands against the wall she had phased through and his charge lit through the panelling. The wall was actually real and not solid hologram. The simulated tunnel flickered as his bio-kinetic charge shorted out some of the projectors. More than that however the lurid pink glow that infused the wall eradicated the shadows Betsy had retreated to. She had no choice but to re-materialise.

Gambit was waiting for her when she emerged; he caught her by the hair from behind and kicked her legs out from under her. Betsy managed to catch hold of his shirt and pulled him down with her as they hit the filthy, blood and viscera soiled floor of the tunnel.

They went down, biting, scratching and kicking; the fight as vicious, undignified and as brutal now as it had been when it began thirty minutes previously.

Blood pulsed from Gambit's nose and spattered hotly across Betsy's cheek as his body weight crashed down on top of her. Betsy twisted underneath him and thrust her palm upwards in a move that would have collapsed his windpipe if it had connected. Instead Gambit rolled off her and got to his knees fists glowing with pinkish white fire and cards poised.

Betsy managed to get her feet underneath her and rolled away from the detonating cards once more. She leapt at him, diving over the smoking crater his cards had left in the tunnel. Gambit whipped his staff up and around and it connected with the side of her head. Betsy saw stars.

Once her head stopped ringing from the blow she found herself staring up into narrowed, furious red on black eyes. The face before her did not look like the arrogant, sly scoundrel Gambit passed himself off as usually. Blood splayed over his lower jaw and cheeks from his bleeding nose, as well as the nail scratches she had clawed down the left side of his face in an attempt to blind him, and his right eye was already swelling closed.

He was breathing hard and rasping as he curled his fingers around her neck and squeezed down on her windpipe hard. His free hand brought a charged card close to her left eye; the cold light from the charge leaving phantasmal after images before her retina and blinding her.

'Yield,' he snarled. Betsy bucked under him, but with his knee pinning one of her hands and his body pinning the other she could not gain the leverage she needed to dislodge him.

'Never!' She hissed. She was a shadow dancer, a night stalker, and a silent killer she would never surrender to a thief. She concentrated all her psi power.

'Murderer,' she cursed him trying for distraction.

'Non,' he breathed through his mouth, words flavoured by his own spilled blood. 'Never killed a single Morlock; never lifted a hand against them.'

Betsy curled her lip, 'That does not absolve you. The Morlock's trusted you and you betrayed them.' Betsy knew that much, although she did not know the full extent of Gambit's dealings with Sinister or his Marauders.

The man above her shivered; eyes haunted by the past instead of focused on the immediate threat.

'Oui,' He whispered. 'Not by choice but I know dat don' change anyt'ing; dey all dead because of me,' the hand holding the card to her face wavered.

Betsy wasn't listening to a word he said; she had seen her opening and she took it. Surging upwards while he was distracted she managed to free one arm. Without thought or hesitation she drove that hand upwards towards his head, psi blade flashing to life. Gambit reared back. She dove forward.

At the last second Gambit clapped her wrist between his two hands, stopping her motion with her psi-blade less than half an inch from his forehead. Betsy punched him in the gut with her other hand.

Gambit fell backwards, Betsy riding his body down until their position of a moment ago was reversed. She sat on his chest and pressed her blade to his right temple. With her own bruises rising up across her body and her blood flowing from any number of shallow lacerations, she smiled down on him.

'Yield.'

He glared up at her, breathing hard but not trying to dislodge her. 'Non you want my secrets Liz'bet? You go on and take a look.'

He sneered at her, white teeth flashing in a mask of blood. Something wild and furious blazed into life behind his eyes.

'You gon condemn me, _assassin_, den you got to know de truth. So go 'head. _Live it_ like I lived it.'

Betsy blinked, looking down into his defiant eyes and she hesitated for the first time. It was unheard of for Gambit to accept a telepathic probe let alone _demand_ one. Betsy suspected a trap. Gambit smiled at her, having the nerve to relax casually under her body. To confound matters further he then winked at her.

'What's de matter, Betts? Afraid of what you gon find? Din't seem to bother you when you attacked my mind while I be sleepin' dat first time,' he chuckled wetly, bloodily. 'You walked de streets of my head already. Don' you want a second visit? I'll even give you de guided tour, oui?'

Betsy glared, 'I don't want anything you have to offer Gambit.'

He laughed then; actually laughed. 'Where's de problem, cherie? Lost de taste for blood, now de prey ain't struggling? No wonder you threw down wit' Sabretoot', you be birds of a feather, non?

Betsy opened her mouth on a retort but was silenced when Gambit had the sheer, crazed audacity to strain his head towards the tip of her psi-blade. He smiled angelically up at her through a thick patina of his own blood. When he spoke again however his voice was cool and devoid of any mockery. It was the voice of a professional; a ruthless one at that.

'Your pretty lil' knife don' scare me Psylocke; got de devil hisself after me. You just a wannabe, Betts, always have been. Kicked you outta my head once an' I'll do it again.'

Betsy saw red, 'Oh really?' Her fist quivered with the desire to smash her blade into his mind.

'C'est vrai; you don' have a clue what you dealin' wit', cherie.' He laughed hoarsely, 'Face it, I'm outta your league.'

'You arrogant, slimy piece of…..'

She didn't finish the insult; instead she gave in to the impulse and drove her psi-blade straight into the side of his head. Gambit's body went into immediate spasm, back arching and hands scrabbling at the simulated concrete of the tunnel. Betsy clung on as she plunged headlong into the labyrinth of Gambit's thoughts.

Her quarry screamed as she ripped through his shields. Betsy had only a split second to enjoy her savage triumph however before she too screamed; her pain so much worse than his.

Betsy fell across the prone form of her opponent, her long violet-black hair spilling over his face and sticking to the drying blood painting his features. Neither combatant moved; both their eyes open and sightless.

* * *

Nathaniel Essex tensed as his monitors began to emit a high, whining warning wail. He drummed his fingers against the metallic alloy of his chair. He frowned as he realised that Dane and Creed were both active and as for the thief……

'What have you done now, Lebeau?'

His monitors told him of a massive disruption in Lebeau's thought processes, something only a telepathic attack could cause. Sinister brushed his knuckles against his chin. Lebeau was always so very problematic; had the little thief decided to take matters into his own hands?

'Did you think I would not anticipate rebellion from you, thief?' he murmured musingly. Then he pressed a button on his console.

'Scalphunter; deploy the Marauders. I want you to fetch the thief from New York. I fear Lebeau is attempting a revolt.' Sinister paused for a moment, considered the variables in play, their psychology and likely responses and decided to make the necessary alterations to his plans. 'Send Arclight and the others to Virginia. Dane and Creed may also need corralling ahead of schedule.'

Was it possible Lebeau was more aware of his situation than he had previously credited?

The thief did not lack intelligence but neither did he exercise his intellect; he was also a notoriously lazy thinker with next to no far sight. Still the man had a certain gutter-bred cunning. It was not inconceivable therefore that Lebeau was aware of the suggestions and psychic compulsions Sinister had worked so hard to lace into his subconscious.

Indeed, the prospect that the thief was aware of those very subconscious amendments to his psyche could prove to be quite a fascinating development. Sinister smiled; he did so enjoy watching his experiments develop, after all.

Scalphunter's voice crackled over the intercom interrupting his ruminations, 'Already? I thought we weren't grabbing those three until…'

The scientist frowned, 'That was an order Scalphunter.'

There was a static filled pause and then, 'Understood sir.' The connection went dead.

Sinister leaned back in his chair and considered the various random factors in play at the moment. He consulted his fob watch; Dane and Creed were not true factors in this scenario, but the thief, well, Sinister had put a great deal of time and effort into Lebeau's development over the years. He was one of his most ambitious experiments; still the man had also proved to be a vaguely disappointing test subject in the past.

Was that about to change? Was Sinister now about to witness the blossoming of the seeds he had ever so carefully planted within Lebeau's mind?

It didn't really matter either way. If Lebeau attempted a full insurrection, Sinister would finally see the blooming of the thief's true potential. If Lebeau fell short of the mark, as he so often had in the past, then Sinister would regain a useful tool. Either way, Nathaniel Essex stood to gain.

He had planned and considered all eventualities; the pieces of this most ambitious experiment were all in place and beginning to take matters into their own hands. It was finally _time_.

He turned his red eyes on the sleeping, prone form of Threnody in her restraints. He smiled once more; yes, it was time indeed to move forward, starting with Threnody. Sinister rose from the chair and waved his hand negligently to summon a tesseract portal.

He picked up the unconscious girl and walked through the void.

* * *

Pain; that was the first indication Remy Lebeau had that he was not dead. Of course it was possible he was simply languishing in the eternal pits of fiery hell, but he was pretty certain he was in fact flat on his back in the Danger Room with Psylocke on top of him.

'Mon dieu; how do I go get mysel' int' dese situations?' he slurred drunkenly.

Blinking his eyes a few times he stared up at the wavering holographic ceiling of the simulated tunnel. He didn't dare move his head as it felt like if he did, the back portion of his skull would slide off. God damn it, he felt like he'd been run down by an eighteen wheeler repeatedly then had an entire marching band dance on his corpse before a hoard of psychotic mosquitoes had crawled under his skin and laid their eggs in his brain.

In other words, he felt like shit.

With the Danger Room still spritzing between tunnel or big empty metal room, and back again, buzzing like a swarm of bees in his ears, Remy less than politely shoved Psylocke off him and rolled over unto his hands and knees.

Bile seared up his trachea and it was only will power and tightly clenched teeth that stopped him from emptying his stomach contents all over the Danger Room floor. Mary Mother of God Betsy packed one helluva punch with that blade of hers. He infinitely preferred it when she skewered his brain when he was unconscious already. Or, better yet, that the femme stayed the hell away from him altogether.

Reaching out a shaking hand Remy brushed the blood matted hair from her face to check that the woman was still breathing. Betsy wasn't his favourite person right now but he could do without the guilt of her homicide on his conscience.

He had struck her a good solid blow to the temple and it was bleeding. He examined the injury but didn't know enough about first aid to know if it was dangerous. Still she was breathing and her pulse was strong; maybe Psylocke was just concussed?

'Tsk, you know what dey say 'bout curiosity, cherie; you got what you deserve.'

He muttered levering himself to his feet, staggering two steps from her unconscious body and promptly falling to his hands and knees once more. He turned back to Betsy and felt his lips curling. Bitch got what she deserved; not like he didn't make it real clear that there was nothing in his head she wanted to see. Damn it he thought he'd caught her snooping last time, but clearly he hadn't been quick enough to prevent her from finding out what he didn't want anyone to know.

He wiped his arm under his nose, swiping at the sticky drying blood. 'Enjoy my mem'ries, Betsy. Here's hopin' you don live to tell de tale, eh?'

Remy started crawling towards the door to the Danger Room. He knew walking upright was out of the question and he needed to get away; he'd belly crawl if he had to. He had to get the hell out of the mansion before Betsy woke up.

Dieu, how could he have been so stupid? Two fucking days and he could have been gone from this place sweet and easy with the X-men dumb and happy, but non! he had to let Betsy rile him up, didn't he? Saint's he must really have a death wish, after all.

God Damn that femme. Why'd she have to wait until now to challenge him; if she'd known all along about the Morlocks why wait six months to do anything about it?

Still crawling on hands and knees towards the door he turned back to look at the downed telepath. Could he afford to leave the femme breathing? What difference did it make anyway? Once the X-men found out about his past they would brand him murderer and Judas traitor anyway; what was one more death to add to the list really going to matter? He didn't need more enemies and killing Betsy would buy him time.

Remy squeezed his eyes closed and pressed a closed fist to his aching head; he knew where that voice came from and he wasn't about to pay any attention to the Marauder in his head.

A man should never kill unless he was prepared to keep killing and Remy Lebeau had never, ever, wanted to kill to begin with. He pushed the cold slither of those darker thoughts back into the cage he had created for them and started crawling again.

At the door to the Danger Room his conscience caught up to him. As much as he firmly believed that Betsy had only herself to blame (she wasn't telepath enough to handle what was lurking in_ his_ head) he nevertheless couldn't live with himself if he left her unconscious and bleeding without doing anything for her; especially when he didn't know how bad her head wound was.

'You lucky, Betts, dat I ain't de man you t'ink I am. Few years back, I'd have left you bleedin' wit' a smile on my face.' He muttered more to himself than the woman who couldn't hear him anyway.

Hauling himself upright using the doorframe as support he fumbled with the control panel. He set the Danger Room to alert Henry that there was a medical emergency in the Danger Room in about thirty minutes time. That ought to hold her; and if Betsy woke up on her own before then, well then, good for her.

He'd be long gone anyhow.

Looked like he was going to fall short of his promise to Stormy by forty-eight hours; eh, considering what he had planned he doubted that one little betrayal would matter much. Non, soon enough his Stormy would probably hate him, especially if Betsy started talking, so leaving two days early really didn't hurt none.

A man had to do what he had to do and he'd always known that sooner or later betrayal would be his only option. He'd _hoped_ for better but prepared for the worst; it was about the only clever thing he'd ever done.

Getting from the Danger Room to his bedroom dripping blood and staggering like he'd been out on an all night bender, taxed his stealth skills to the limit. It was sheer dumb luck that Logan was out communing with the woods and so the mangy little Canuck didn't rumble him by smelling the blood and kicking up a stink.

By the time he reached the second floor corridor leading to this bedroom at the end of the wing he was on his hands and knees again. His brain was pulsing with strobe flashes of red and white neon pain. He was half blind and his body was in considerable distress and making that clear through a hundred small points of discomfort.

Ah oui, this had to be one of his better plans, non? He must be some kind of genius; after all it had to take a rare type of thinking to decide that, on being confronted with the fact that Betsy knew about the massacre, and instead of running the hell away or trying to deny it, he demands that she rip into his brain and find all the rest of the evil shit floating about in his head.

'Bravo boy, you outdone yoursel' dis time,' He spat disgusted with himself. 'If'n dere be an award for de dumbest t'ing I ever done dis gon be a forerunner for de grand prize. Mon dieu, anybody t'ink I like puttin' mysel' through dis shit.'

It seemed to be taking forever to drag his carcass down the hall to his room. All he wanted to do was curl up on the beige carpeting runner in the hall and sleep, didn't even care overmuch if he woke up again. In fact, in some respects it would be better if he didn't.

'Idiot,' He continued to berate himself in a number of languages as a way of keeping himself conscious until he reached his room.

His room was literally at the end of the corridor with Logan and Bishop's doors catty-corner to him. More than once Remy had reflected that it was like being sandwiched between the secret police; both men seemed to think his personal business was there's as well.

D'accord there were a lot of things about living with the X-men that he would not miss; that was for damn sure.

When he finally reached his room it took more effort than was pretty to get the door unlocked and he promptly fell flat on his face onto his hardwood flooring when a shoulder shove to his door made it swing open harder than he'd anticipated.

Remy crawled in and kicked the door closed behind him. He dragged himself over the two foot it took to reach his bed and then collapsed on the floor by his bed letting his cheek press against the cool smoothness of the floorboards. For a handful of minutes he simply curled there like that, concentrating on breathing through the excruciating pain in his head.

It felt exactly like his mind had been sliced open, right to the quick, with a very sharp knife. The wound was precise and clean but the throbbing ache of his thoughts and feelings torn free and pulsing to the surface was enough to bring tears to his eyes. His shields were torn in ribbons and his mind laid bare.

The only good thing about the whole sorry mess was the fact that he could no longer hear the ticking. He opened his eyes and a sharp grin scythed across his lips. The ticking had stopped; it was just out right gone.

Well, don't that just beat all?

He started to chuckle wetly, but it hurt his aching ribs and throbbing nose so he stopped. Maybe getting Psylocke to shish-kabab his grey matter had been a better idea than he'd thought, eh? Aside from the sickening, dizzying agony in his mind and the bruises on his bruises he felt…..oui, he felt better than he had in way too long.

His mind felt sharper, brighter, lighter than it had. That horrible, exhausting and oppressive misery that had leeched the vitality and colour from his world and sucked the joy from his soul for months had dissipated in a wave of screaming pain as Psylocke had torn a hole in his shields.

What was excruciating pain in comparison to that, eh? It wasn't like Remy Lebeau was unaccustomed to pain in his life.

So, he thought musingly, he'd been right all along then? He rolled over onto his back and stared up at his ceiling without seeing it. The pain helped to sharpen his thoughts as he pondered the puzzle that had been his main preoccupation for the last half year.

Ever since the diamond headed bastard had come to him in Seattle that hellish night Rogue abandoned him, he'd begun to suspect that something wasn't right. Essex had said that the time would come to play the 'hand Sinister had dealt him'. It had taken a lot of quality brooding time on the roof to figure out that particular riddle and he'd had to rip open all his old soul wounds to do it. He'd had to drive himself beyond the point of madness – but, mon dieu, he'd been right!

Remy Lebeau smiled, it was nice to be proved right after all; it almost made what he had to do next bearable.

'Get a move on homme,' he muttered after indulging in another few seconds thought. Forcing his battered limbs to act he reached over to his bedside cabinet and pulled open the door where he kept his medical supplies (it wasn't like was going to go to Henry every time he took an injury. Especially not when the furry docteur saw every visit as an opportunity to lecture him, non?).

He made short work of ripping off his filthy, ruined clothes and lamented the fact that he couldn't spare the time or the bipedal co-ordination to take a shower. Instead he washed himself off as best he could with water from the half full bottle of Evian he'd left on his desk and a collection of cotton wool balls, applied band-aids to the worst of his cuts and then struggled into clothing.

He was sick and exhausted after that herculean effort but urgency to move had caught hold of him so he did not stop.

From under the bed he withdrew his packed duffel-bag; the battered old sports bag he'd brought with him three years ago when he'd come up here with Stormy. He'd never unpacked it. Everything he had in his room now had been purchased after he had come here. Everything he needed, all the essential for the continuation of his life apparatus, such as his legal aliases, his bank account details, his thief tools and other things that he would kill to keep hidden had remained hidden away in his duffel bag.

Well almost everything of importance was in the duffel bag.

Lurching up from the floor Remy just about managed to walk a straight line to his desk. He found the nest of rosary beads and the pocket watch at the bottom of his drawer. He scoped them up without looking at them and dumped them into his bag. He didn't bother to pack any clothing; though he did snatch his electric razor and a pair of sunglasses from his other desk drawer. His trench coat he took from the hook on the back of the door. He left his body armour in the wardrobe; he didn't need it and he no longer wanted to wear Sinister's colours.

There was just one more thing he needed to do before he could leave. He picked up the marker pen and leaned against the wall opposite his bed as he left his parting shot across the paintwork.

'Au revoir X-men; it's been different, but now I best be goin'.' He muttered absently dropping the pen on the desk.

With trench coat donned and bag slung over his shoulder he wrenched open the window sash and took one last, indifferent look about the room that had been his for three years before promptly leaping out of the second floor window.

He landed neatly, despite the wave of pain in his head and the muscles of his legs as he absorbed the impact. All in all he was feeling quite pleased with himself; almost giddy now that the cursed ticking had stopped. This feeling of ebullience lasted all of four point one seconds then……

'Lebeau – where do you think you are going?'

Remy stopped; he was only feet from the garage and his waiting bike. He closed his eyes in esoteric pain; he had the worst fucking luck in existence!

Swallowing further curses harsh enough to blister varnish he forced his stance to remain relaxed as Bishop approached him from behind. Oui, it would just have to be him, wouldn't it? No way the man upstairs be prepared to give Remy Lebeau just one little break. Damn it; he needed to get gone!

'Leavin' mon ami, what it look like?' he replied flippantly, refusing to turn to face the man.

Remy waited holding his breath for what the man would do next. If he'd thought he could manage it he'd just make a dash for his bike, but chances were, feeling like he did, he'd just fall flat on his damn fool face if he tried.

Bishop did not bother to say anything in return but instead did something far worse. He walked boldly around Remy so that he could look him in the face. Remy sighed internally, he was in deep shit now.

The fleeting expression of shock that passed over the large man's usually granite hard countenance convinced him that Betsy had really done a number on him. Still he doubted he could look anywhere near as bad as he felt.

'Lebeau, you are injured.' Bishop had a habit of stating the obvious as if it contained new and unknown facts to his audience; it never failed to annoy Remy when he did that. He could not resist rolling his eyes, even though his right eye was already swelling mostly closed.

'Well done, Bish, I beginnin' to see what de XSE saw in you. Your 'bility to state de damned obvious is tres excellente.' He tried to side step the man mountain and almost toppled over sideways. He caught his balanced but did not manage to get around the other man.

'What has happened?' Bishop demanded remaining quite deliberately in his way.

'You gon believe me if'n I say I walked int' a door?' Remy asked tiredly.

He had the strangest desire to admit that he'd just had a knock down drag out fight with Betsy and was in the process of trying to bolt before mon Capitan Cyclops found out about it. He decided he needed to put a leash on his mouth and pronto; his brains were obviously still scrambled.

'No.' Bishop answered him folding his arms across his chest, his muscles bunched and corded in warning. 'I most certainly would not.'

Remy began to consider the relative merits of charging the molecules in the other man's uniform then figured it wouldn't work anyway; the man would just absorb the charge before it could detonate.

'D'accord, I won't say it den.'

Careful not to tip off the other man Remy unzipped a special panel in his bag and slipped his fingers inside. Where was it? Where the hell was…….ah, there it was! Now all he needed was a distraction.

'Lebeau you must tell me immediately what threat to the X-men has…' the man was cut off by the sudden static charged interruption of Cyclops' voice.

'All X-men meet in the War Room; Psylocke is injured.'

Bishop frowned down at him from his impressive height. The first inkling of suspicion coloured his expression. 'We must go.'

Remy smiled and gestured grandly with one hand, 'After you mon ami.'

Bishop made the mistake of beginning to turn away. He stopped, some paranoid six sense making him question the wisdom of leaving Lebeau at his back, but it was already too late.

The solid bar of soap inside the old sock was already spinning towards the side of his head. Bishop reacted fast but he had never been fast enough to match Lebeau's reflexes.

The first blow from the poor man's cosh staggered him; the second that rained down almost too fast to see brought him to his knees and the third smashed down onto the back of his head with ruthless precision knocking him out cold. He keeled over onto his side without a word.

Remy Lebeau, makeshift weapon in hand, looked down on him with regret. 'Je suis desole Bishop, but you picked de wrong day to be patrollin' de yard.'

Shoving the cosh back into his bag Remy turned and sprinted towards the garage with something less than his usual grace but at least he didn't fall over.

He was roaring down the Graymalkin Lane full throttle before any of the other X-men noticed his or Bishop's absence.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Eight: Comprehension**

Jean Grey-Summers nibbled on the inside of her cheek as she levitated Psylocke's unconscious body onto the medbay bed for Hank. Her eyes darted from him to Betsy and back again. She tasted the thin, copper taint of blood on her tongue and suspected that she'd have a nice ulcer on the inside lip when she was done.

Across the medbay Bishop was sitting on the side of a bed rubbing his head over the bandages encasing his skull. To the say the atmosphere in the medbay was tense was quite the understatement.

'Jean - what the hell happened?'

Scott strode into the medbay and even though his eyes were, as always, shielded from view by the visor, she knew that his keen gaze was sweeping over both X-men on the beds with Hank hovering between them as he checked them for the most severe injuries.

Jean knew she had waited too long to reply when Scott turned his face directly to her and gently prodded on his side of their psychic rapport. He knew she was shielding from him but, the truth was, they both did that from time to time. It was just not practical to remain in constant psychic contact all the time. There was such a thing as privacy after all.

_Jean? _

She winced; _It's a real snafu Scott. I can't explain now. I need to find out what damage Betsy suffered first. _

Hank glanced over to her then, his expression eloquent without words. Jean nodded and moved forward. 'What do you need, Hank?'

He smiled briefly, 'If you would be so kind as to triage our dear resident Ninja's minor wounds? I need to check on the developing cranial x-rays. Psylocke seems to have a rather impressive contusion to the side of her cranium. I dare say caused by a blunt metallic object, much in the same nature as a adamantium bo-staff.'

He shook his head ruefully but Jean could see the simmering anger hidden beneath the bluff words. Hank was a healer; a peaceful man. He detested violence and simply could not countenance how two people supposedly on the same side could do this to each other. Jean also knew that Hank could not guess at what could have possessed Gambit to leave Betsy unconscious and bleeding and injure another teammate in his flight from the mansion. He met Jean's eyes and his own were tired. 'I fear she may have a skull fracture.'

Jean floated towards her some gauze, padding and disinfectant, 'Leave it to me, Hank.'

She was not trained in anything more advanced than field first aid, but her powers made her invaluable to Hank as a medical assistant. She could sense when patients were regaining consciousness, and in the case of some of her teammates with particularly volatile powers and temperaments, her powers could contain theirs if they happened to wake up in rambunctious mood.

Scott drifted over and watched over her shoulder, helping her cut the gauze strips as she began the work of cleaning Betsy up so she could decide what needed to be patched up and what didn't.

'Fuck, what were they trying to do, kill each other?'

Scott rarely cursed but Jean decided that cursing was acceptable at this time. In fact she could think of a number of choice words much more appropriate that were just dying to trip off her own tongue. Of course she kept them to herself; she had a reputation as a nice, polite middle class den mother to maintain after all.

'I don't know Scott. Sometimes I think that everyone in this mansion has gone mad. We all seem to be at each others throats constantly.'

They had all seen the security recording of the entire fight in the Danger Room. Although the audio had been switched off so they lacked a narrative to explain how what seemed to have started as a sparring match had turned into a battle for blood. Jean tightened her lips on her own anxiety and confusion.

Betsy didn't look too bad once Jean had cleaned the dried blood from her face; her worst injury looked to be the head wound. In fact, in the recording of the fight it had seemed like Gambit had been mostly fighting defensively – at least in the beginning.

'You're thinking too hard Jean. What's your read on this situation?' Scott asked her quietly. He had always valued her input, even before they became a couple. That was one of the reasons she had been attracted to him in the first place.

'I saw those tapes honey, despite what Warren says, Psylocke was goading Gambit. Even without the audio that was clear; she was the instigator and she seemed to be deliberately trying to make him lose control in the fight.' He added and his voice was thick with frustration.

'I think….I think Betsy was trying to make him so angry his psi-shields would weaken. He needs to concentrate to maintain them and high emotion tends to make him project more than he might realise.'

Jean admitted carefully, knowing that she was very limited in what she could say without breaking the promise she had made to Charles.

Despite everything, despite what Onslaught had done to destroy the trust she had given to Charles all these years, she still loved and respected the man. A man who, despite being flawed as all humans were had done his best for her since she was ten years old. She wasn't sure she would ever be able to grant him the blind trust she once had but Jean still honoured the promises she had made to the professor. Especially when it came to the secrets he had learned about other team members.

Scott frowned and Jean could feel the snap and crackle of his thoughts as he tried to think things through; analysing and interpreting all the available facts to find the answers. She smiled; she loved the spark and friction of his thoughts.

'So you think her objective was to breach his shields?' he asked finally. 'Still, why would doing that have knocked her out? We all saw the tapes; she collapsed _after_ she'd penetrated his mind with her psi-blade.'

'Charles warned me once not to try Gambit's shields. Apparently his mutation doesn't just make him difficult to read, it makes any in-depth telepathic contact painful for both him and the telepath. I think Betsy ended up hit by the backlash – that and Gambit smacked her with his staff.' Jean added flippantly. 'You know how hard he hits with that thing.'

She let out a breath and only then realised how angry she was. She began to fuss with Betsy's cuts and bruises again as a means of distraction. Scott handed her another band-aid as she cleaned the grazes on Betsy's knuckles. He didn't interfere with her slightly frustrated mothering. He knew she needed to work through things in her own way and would patiently wait it out with her.

'I didn't think it was possible to break Gambit's shields?' Scott queried after a while.

'It's possible Scott. I could do it if I really wanted to.' Jean admitted, 'But it would be the same as what Charles did to Magneto aboard Avalon. It would be like ripping into his mind and trying to tear his psyche in half.' She sighed, 'I can't imagine why Betsy would ever dream of doing something like this.'

'Really?'

Scott latched onto this admission as a possible clue to Gambit's behaviour after he had regained consciousness. 'Is it possible Gambit wasn't thinking rationally when he ran? Could the breaking of his shields have made him attack Bishop?'

Jean hesitated; she didn't know what to say. It was incredibly frustrating that the audio feed had been silenced on the tapes. If only they could find out what the two had said to each other, they might then know what had happened!

When Jean had seen the simulacrum of the Morlock Tunnels in the tapes her stomach had taken a nose dive to her knees, and she didn't think she would ever forget the look of sickened horror that painted Gambit's features. Jean had always thought of Gambit as a jaded and emotionally stunted man; why would the massacre, an event he had no part in, bring forth such a reaction from him – and why had Betsy used it in the fight?

'What aren't you telling me, Jean?'

Scott asked her quietly, resting his hands on her shoulders and pressing a kiss to her head. The gesture told her that he wasn't hurt that she was keeping things from him but that he expected a good answer as to why. Sadly she wasn't sure she had one to give.

* * *

Rogue stood in the empty room and shivered; the sense of loss, of grief, she felt actually surprised her. In the last four months since she'd returned to the X-men she had made it her bloody-minded mission to excise all consideration of his existence from her mind. She'd done her best to act like he was nothing and no one and she didn't care a whit if he lived or died or disappeared tomorrow.

Now he had it felt like the foundation of her soul had just been torn loose and the emptiness in her heart seemed to echo throughout the room.

Rogue had been in this bedroom plenty of times in the past; she'd poked into all the nooks and all the crannies and she'd made a point of regularly checking to make sure the small collection of pot plants Ororo had given to Remy remained alive and mostly healthy. Lord knew Remy wasn't capable of supervising the healthy growing of a cactus without careful nagging.

Walking over to the book shelf where the plants were lined up it didn't surprise her to find them brown, withered and wilting. The soil in the pots was bone dry and in one case a cobweb spread over the dirt like a film of silken grey. She shook her head ruefully; she had no doubt in her mind that Ororo would just replenish the plants and try again like she had so many times in the past.

Rogue sucked in a sharp breath as she realised that 'Ro wouldn't be doing that anymore because Remy wasn't coming home. He was gone and already the void he'd left ached inside her. She'd pushed him away for months; she'd deliberately done all she could to make him hate her because then she'd feel justified in hurting him, but all the while she'd clung to the faintest hope that one day, somehow, he'd fix it all and they could go back to the way they had been.

Remy wasn't going to be fixing anything now; that was clear. He was done with them and he'd burned his bridges when he left Betsy bleeding on the Danger Room floor. Wrapping her arms around herself Rogue looked at the gaping window, the method of escape, and the messy pile of torn and blood stained clothing abandoned on the floor.

The duffle bag from under the bed was gone; both she and Storm had checked that first. Henri Lebeau's antique pocket watch and Remy's collection of Rosary beads were also gone. Of all the things in this room Remy would never leave that watch and those beads unless he had planned to return; they were gone which meant he was gone – for good.

Rogue sat on the bed and inhaled the faint aroma of stale tobacco (Remy smoked in his room but he did so by leaning out of the window – it wasn't foolproof but even Hank had had to accept that he could not stop Remy smoking in his own room). There was still that strange air of sadness in the room that had always been there. Rogue was reminded that, back when she had first joined this team and the New Mutant's had lived in the mansion, this room had belonged to the teenaged Illyana Rasputin, and there were few more tragic figures than her.

The décor didn't help matters either; Remy had lived and slept in this room for three years, and by his own admission his stay in the mansion was the longest time he'd spent in one place since his family ousted him from New Orleans. Still the walls were tired magnolia; neutral and impersonal. The furniture was serviceable but came out of a kit; easy to assemble and easy to disassemble. The same with the shelving he'd put up to house his art history books and the foreign language novels in Chinese and Arabic that she wasn't even going to guess at.

Everything in the room was designed and placed to be easy to remove if need be; it was transient and unassuming almost as if he'd always known he'd make a quick exit one day and the room would go to someone else.

Rogue reconsidered; the room wasn't sad because of the ghost of Illyana. No, it was sad because of the man who had lived in it like a squatter and never dared to call the space his own.

Her eyes were drawn once more to the scrawled message daubed in permanent marker across those sterile walls. She stared for a long time at the bloody handprint impressed upon the paint just below the words, where Remy had propped himself up to write his message. The handprint and the message spoke volumes but Rogue wondered if any X-man in the mansion would really take it to heart.

The message wasn't for them though; in fact Rogue was pretty damn sure it was meant for her alone or at least part of it was.

_You do not have the right to judge me; walk a thousand miles in my shoes and you'll only go backwards. You will never know how my garden grows. _

The judgement part she figured was a pretty darn clear fuck you message to her and everyone else in this house that had ever looked down on him; but she didn't understand the last part.

'What garden sugar?' She asked in a low voice as the shade slipped into the room and leaned against the wall beside the cryptic message. 'Am ah supposed ta know what that means?'

He shrugged arms crossed and shades over his eyes. He was wearing his trench coat over his dark suit today and the diamond on his forehead was more pronounced.

Rogue's fists curled in frustration. He'd been giving her the silent treatment all day; there was nothing worse than being haunted by a ghost who wouldn't speak a damn word and instead just looked at her like she shouldn't need to ask.

'Ah'm tryin' sugar but how can ah listen ta what ya have ta say if ya ain't sayin' anything?' She demanded and the shade just smirked at her and turned to walk out of the room.

Rogue was about to call out to him when she stopped herself; no one else could see him. If she started yelling after a man the whole mansion knew was gone she'd have everyone thinking she was nuts.

Getting up Rogue decided the best thing to do was follow him; maybe he wanted to show and not tell; whatever the case Rogue didn't want to be in this room surrounded by the evidence of Gambit's absence a moment longer. She drifted after the illusion as he led her deep into the sub basements of the mansion.

* * *

Jean gnawed on her inside cheek again, 'I can't tell you Scott. It's privileged information.'

Scott twisted her about by the shoulders and she let him, even though if she didn't want to move no one could make her. She looked calmly up into his face and could feel the thoughts sliding through his mind.

'You know what it is, don't you?' he asked her sounding more surprised than anything else, 'You know what Gambit's big bad secret is.'

It wasn't a question because he just knew her too well. Still he was wrong on this occasion; at least partly. All the same she knew more than she felt she could say. She had known more about Gambit than she felt able to tell her husband for over a year now.

She shook her head carefully, 'I only know what Charles told me.' She couldn't quite meet his eyes.

'Charles…?' Scott hesitated and then tried again, 'Then the Professor knew what Gambit was hiding from the rest of us?'

Jean slipped from his grasp and went around to the other side of the medbed from her husband. She concentrated on stripping off Psylocke's blood stained uniform so she could see what injuries might be lurking underneath. Scott backed off to give Betsy privacy and it gave Jean a few minutes respite to think about how much she could safely admit to.

Scott might be her husband and the leader of this team, but it was Jean Charles had trusted with the team's secrets. Sometimes she hated the professor for that. It was a responsibility she took seriously but one she had never wanted; especially when it put her in a position like this one.

'Jean….' Scott didn't need to say anything more. Jean's fingers tensed as they tracked over Betsy's ribs checking for breaks. She chewed on her cheek savagely. She hated lying; she was just so bad at it.

Satisfied that she had done all she could for Betsy, at least for the moment, she pulled the sheet over her sleeping form and crossed the room to her husband.

'Scott it took Charles _two years_ to convince Gambit that he could be trusted with the truth, and even then Gambit wouldn't allow any kind of mind probe. All I know is what Charles told me and most of that I'm not allowed to tell you.'

'Allowed?' Scott was startled, 'Why are you keeping Gambit's secrets for him – and at a time like this? He just assaulted two teammates!'

Jean sighed. She wondered how to answer his angry questions honestly without making the situation ten times worse. What was she to say? She couldn't tell him the truth without telling him everything and she really wasn't sure that was a good idea.

'I don't know his secret!' she shot back, 'and even if I did and I kept it from you, it would be because that was what Charles wanted.' She pressed her lips tightly together and felt the ripple of Scott's reaction through their link.

She looked up at him fiercely, 'Scott, listen to me; Charles black boxed Gambit's file. He locked up the truth about Gambit inside Cerebro's memory banks. I'm not even sure I could access them, and no one who isn't an Alpha telepath can get near the black box files. Charles believed that Gambit's secret was worth keeping. That's all I know.'

As Scott was trying to process this revelation Hank pushed politely forward having returned with the x-rays and catching the tail end of the conversation, 'Oh my stars and garters. This is quite the intrigue.'

Despite his jovial tone Jean knew, because she could hear the echo of his thoughts, that he was shocked. All the original five, plus Ororo, knew what the Cerebro black box was. It was where Charles had kept his 'Xavier protocols' among other things. The protocols were a manual on how to destroy each one of them should that ever become necessary, and the rest of the contents of the black box were equally ominous.

The team had only found out about the protocols in the wake of Onslaught. Jean knew that now the two men before her were each wondering if Gambit's secret was of the same magnitude and gravity as that. Already the faint residue distrust they both harboured towards Gambit at least subconsciously intensified. They were now wondering if Gambit posed a serious threat to them all.

Jean wasn't sure what she could say to reassure them. Charles had insisted that Gambit himself was not a threat and Jean had reluctantly agreed that he must be sincere in his desire to fight with the X-men. Still, Gambit had now hurt two members of the team before absconding and she was forced to wonder if the professor had been wrong - or if perhaps something more _sinister _was going on.

Scott pursed his lips, 'Jean, I understand privacy. I respect Charles' wishes. But Charles isn't here and now Gambit's gone who knows where and is potentially very dangerous. We don't know if he's even in his right mind right now.'

He glanced at Hank for a moment and some unspoken understanding seemed to pass between them, it wasn't telepathic though so she couldn't decipher it.

'You need to tell me what you know.'

* * *

Something inside Rogue quelled when she realised where they were headed and she almost turned back and fled back to the anxiety rife chaos upstairs. Listening to Warren call Remy all the names under the sun and accuse him of all kinds of awful things would be better than this; better than finding the confirmation of much of what Worthington had to say.

The shade glanced at her over his shoulder and she noticed then that there was blood on the hem of his trench coat, his shades were gone, and his face was spattered in gore; his eyes seemed to burn with an intensity of pain that Rogue had never known. She stared into those eyes and knew that if she turned back now the shade would never bother her again; Remy would be gone just like she'd wanted him to be, gone for good.

Rogue pulled at a clump of curls rolling down from her head savagely as she hesitated, caught between a desire to just finally _know_ once and for all and the fear that came from realising she already did know. She knew why he was leading her to the Morlock graves at the edge of the mansion sublevel tunnels and she didn't want to be confronted with the truth he wanted to show her.

Those red eyes, steady and patient as the grave, told her she could go if she wanted and he would not blame her; he'd never wanted her to see what he had seen, or know the horror he had known after all. He would never call her coward for running from what had never been her cross to bear. He would never blame her for judging him and condemning him outright because that was easier than truly tasting and testing the depth of his guilt and weighing his crimes honestly.

He would never blame her, but she would.

Rogue stepped forward, 'Ah'm listenin' sugar; Ah'm really listening now.' She whispered as the first tears fell.

The shade turned around then to face her fully and Rogue recoiled in horror; hands fluttering close to her mouth to smother a scream she did not have the breath to utter.

The shade opened his arms away from his body and his trench coat fell open. He was drenched in blood; it was so thick it looked like tar and it coated his face and his clothes and clotted in the loose strands of his hair as if he'd stood under the sluices in an abattoir. His red eyes burned into her and the runnels of his tears scored through the mask of blood.

'Dey killed de chillen first.'

All around and from nowhere and everywhere at once she heard it; like a wall of sound, a distorted fractured roaring beast of pain and terror. A thousand screams merged into one soul destroying echo. The peaceful memorial of flat stones laid out neatly in the grass Ororo so carefully tended eroded before her eyes. She saw fire and blood and the sightless eyes of butchered bodies gaping at her; too surprised to be afraid as their lives were torn to literal pieces.

'De coulda got in on dere own, de Marauders, but most o' de Morlock's woulda escaped dat way when de killings started; Essex din't want dat. He needed someone dat had earned de Morlocks trust to bring dem all to one central place. Dat way most o' dem would be dead in de openin' salvo; dey died in less'n five minutes.'

The trench coat slipped off the shoulders of the revenant before her and Rogue pressed her own hands to her abdomen as she saw, brilliant and lurid as the worst kind of horror movie, the huge tears in his flesh and armour; the mark of Sabretooth. The claw marks had ripped open his torso and torn at his neck; he bled from multiple points and his blood mingled at his feet with the blood of the Morlocks running like a river into the sewer waters.

'Do you know what it feels like to be de key dat opens de door to evil?'

The ghost asked her voice flat and empty but somehow riding the echo of the all the screams Rogue could still hear. The eyes watched her dully from a pallid face.

'I ran; found one lil' girl, wit' bones stickin' every which way outta her. Dat was all; couldn save anyone else, dey all died so quick…..all dose people an' dey not'ing but spoiled meat in less time den it take to tell o' it.'

He shook his head and it was only when his knees hit the ground that Rogue realised that she too was keening on the floor, arms wrapped around her body as she shuddered with the memory; the taste and the touch of death all around her.

'He tol' me he wanted samples; he tol' me he wanted to snatch dem and study dem. Essex lied, de devil lied, but you can't blame de gator for bein' a gator, non? Dis is my crime an' only mine.'

Rogue threw up; vomit scorching up her throat and scolding her aching lungs. She choked on sickness as she tried to force the memories away. She felt the blood and the death and the putrid scent of offal and opened bowels leeching into her pores, filling her up. She was a piece of this horror, this monstrousness; she breathed it, she tasted it, there was no divide between where this terror ended and she began. Blood coated her fingers and grew sticky and hard over her face. All she saw was red and black; all she heard was the inarticulate roar of carnage.

'Nonononono!'

Rogue fell onto her side and clapped her hands over her ears trying to drown out the sounds. She held her breath but death had crept into her lungs and her tongue was coated with putrid. She squeezed her eyes closed and saw the bodies staring back at her.

As an X-man Rogue had seen battle; she had seen warfare and she had suffered both for her genetics and her belief in the Dream. As a woman she had done wrong and known what it was to carry the guilt of misdeeds as a constant stigma. If she had never actually killed with her powers when she followed her mama Mystique it was more luck than restraint on her part; in her heart she knew that innocence was not something she could lay claim to.

Deep down Rogue had always known that she had meant to kill Carol and she had wanted to kill Dazzler; not because her powers were uncontrollable but because of her own hate and jealousy. She despised and ran from that truth everyday; an X-man should be better than that – she should be better than that. Still nothing Rogue had ever done, or wanted to do, could compare to the slaughter in the tunnels.

Rogue was not guilty of the crimes Remy was; she did not have the blood on her hands that steeped Remy's very soul. She looked up into those dead red eyes and the mutilated body that was more real than the perfect package he had shown her these last three years and she shuddered with total revulsion.

Rogue picked herself up; hands curled into shaking fists. She knew what she had to do. She knew the truth now and she knew what he had done. The Remy shade watched her leave the tunnels without uttering a word. She left him there, in the filth and the terror of his guilt without a backward glance.

She knew what she had to do now.

* * *

Jean recognised the tone of voice Scott used. It was Cyclops' voice, not Scott her husband. Still she shook her head; she was not the sort of woman to back down simply due to a tone of voice.

'I don't know anything concrete Scott – Charles kept Remy's confidence, he only told me what he thought I should know as another psi.'

She didn't know what to do! The situation was too precarious and saying the wrong thing could have drastic consequences……but saying nothing at all could be so much worse.

'Jean,' Scott sighed, 'In two days Gambit had planned to leave this team. I need to know if that was just a smokescreen or whether his choice to leave was completely coincidental to Betsy's decision to break his shields…'

Jean's shocked gasp cut him off. She pressed a hand to her mouth. Hank was also looking askance towards him; clearly Hank had been unaware of this as well.

'And, why pray tell, was I not informed of this development? Really Scott, after our conversation of a month ago what could have convinced you to acquiesce to his request? Gambit is not well; this action could be further evidence of his emotional degradation.'

Scott shrugged almost diffidently, 'I tried to talk him out of it, Hank. In fact I told him he couldn't quit, but instead I'd give him a supervised leave of absence. Logan tried to get him to reconsider. Hell, Ororo only managed to talk him into staying on for the month; he wouldn't even give her more than that - and Gambit _always_ gives in to Storm.'

'He can't leave the team Scott.' Jean could feel her pulse in her head; she was cold all over. 'He knows that! Charles told him that he couldn't leave the team without his express permission. It isn't safe for him to leave.'

Jean closed her eyes and took a deep breath. 'What were you thinking Remy?' she whispered heatedly.

Jean's feelings towards Gambit were decidedly mixed at the best of times. She thought his relationship with Rogue was a mistake for both of them. She thought his friendship with Ororo spoke better of his character than any other single facet of his nature he had ever shown to the rest of the team. She thought he was probably a dreadfully lonely, unhappy man under his constant façade. She found him charming and knew he had a wickedly sharp sense of humour when he wanted to. She also thought he was inherently dishonest, untrustworthy, and had a very ambiguous moral centre. She liked him but she didn't trust him one iota.

In short he drove her up the wall and she often wanted to telekinetically punt him head first into Spuyten Dyvil Cove and hold him there until he begged for mercy.

Scott surprised her from her thoughts by putting his arms around her waist and nuzzling her neck in a rare show of public affection. He could feel her distress through the link they shared.

'Redd come on. What's going on? I _need_ to know. Gambit could have walked out of here in two days time if this hadn't happened and I wouldn't have known I was supposed to stop him. Now as it stands he's AWOL and Betsy's hurt.'

Jean closed her eyes and tilted her head back against his shoulder, settling into his embrace. 'I know, it's just…..' she trailed off.

Bishop had moved like a shadow from his perch on the bed to join them; despite his size the man could move soundlessly and now stood listening intently.

'You do not know what Lebeau is capable of; I have seen what his madness can do. If you truly fear he is irrational then we must apprehend him; talk of motive is futile, we can discover the why after we have found him.' The man intoned solemnly.

Jean could not sense any real anger towards the man who had attacked him from Bishop's thoughts. Instead there was a strange sense of sadness and anxiety; both for Gambit and in response to what he might do without inhibition or conscience to stop him. She thought furiously over what she must do and what she should say.

Gambit had broken the agreement with the professor first. He'd tried to leave when he knew Charles wasn't here to stop him and Scott didn't know he _should_ stop him. Remy had to have known what he was doing, and that infraction against the rules justified her own in Jean's mind. The situation had changed and in ways Charles had not prepared her for; she had to react to the present as the old rules no longer applied.

'It's Sinister Scott.'

She felt her husband's breath catch at the mention of the man who had caused them both so much pain, and who remained one of the X-men's greatest threats.

'That's all Charles would tell me. Gambit's secret, the thing he's scared of,' she took a deep breath and blew it out noisily, ruffling loose tendrils of her own hair off her forehead as she did so. 'It has to do with Sinister and what he did to Gambit before he came to the team.'

No one said a word for the longest moment but the three men's thoughts were deafening to Jean. She stood firm in the face of the maelstrom however and waited. Scott spoke up first, as she had expected.

'What did Sinister do to Gambit?' He asked very levelly. He was angry, partly because Sinister affected him in that way and partly because he was shocked to his core.

Jean shook her head, 'I don't know; Charles didn't know everything though he had suspicions. God Scott, Charles didn't think _Gambit_ really knew what Sinister did to his powers….'

'His powers?' Hank interrupted, voice and expression keen, 'Oh my stars and garters.' He whipped off his spectacles, 'Oh my yes! Why oh why did I not see it myself? The evidence was rudimentary and yet I failed to draw the obvious conclusions.'

He clapped his furred hands together delightedly, 'It all makes perfect sense now!'


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Nine: Recollection Pt. One **

**1991: New Orleans, Louisiana – August 11****th**

The man who once was called John Grey Crow but now preferred Scalphunter walked through the cloying sultry heat of the New Orleans late summer with an irritable frown on his face. He had come down to the Big Easy to get away from Essex and that damned shithole Orphanage in Nebraska the man was running to keep his precious Summers experiment under his thumb. Still now he was here Scalphunter wanted to get out of this dump of a city with a vengeance.

He hated the tourists, he hated the spitting on the streets, he hated the stink of horseshit from Jackson square where the handsome carriages waited to take dumb tourists for over priced quaint 'olde worlde' tours of the Deep South city. He hated the tacky souvenir stores along the French Quarter and the waterfront. He hated the jazz boats selling Crawfish etoufee to fat old folks on package tours. In short he wished he could just open fire on the whole lot of them.

Almost instinctively Scalphunter moved away from the tourist trap of the Avenue, the Rue Royale, and the rest of the Quarter and headed out towards the tenements and projects where the real people lived and worked and died in one endless, meaningless cycle that had shitall to do with charteuse, king cakes and Mardi gras beads. He passed St. Charles number one and slipped inside on a whim.

It would prove to be a fortuitous decision. As Scalphunter prowled through the serried rows of white washed mausoleums, the marble angels weeping down on him from washed out faces, he witnessed quite a sight.

A man who had tourist written all over his khaki shorts, designer t-shirt and open toed sandals was snapping pictures of one of the mausoleums that appeared to be covered with crosses daubed in chalk. Scalphunter vaguely remembered some story about a dead Vaudun bitch buried in one of the cemeteries that was said to grant wishes from beyond the grave, but he didn't bother to come up with her name. It was all bullshit anyway.

In fact Scalphunter had been about to walk on until he'd noticed the scrawny little bag of bones kid who slipped around one of the other tombs behind the tourist.

Scalphunter had heard that the street kids of the city lived and slept in the cemetery and from the looks of things this kid was one of those. His brown hair was lank and fell in his face, he wore a pair of five dollar sunglasses too big for him and his t-shirt and jeans were filthy and crusted with ingrained dirt. The kid had what looked like an old sock tied through one of the belt loops of his jeans; Scalphunter recognised the weight of a bar of soap hanging from the bottom. He couldn't have been more than eight years old.

Well, this could be interesting.

'Hey mister!' The kid's voice was a squeak. The tourist jumped out of his skin and Scalphunter, hidden from both the kid and the tourist, swallowed a snicker. He watched as the gutter boy sidled over to the man.

'You on your lonesome, sir?' the boy asked as the tourist eyed his filthy clothes and dirty face sceptically, 'Give you a guided tour, mebbe? Five dollars; show you de sites dat you ain't never gon see in no guide book.' The kid smiled but the tourist shook his head.

'No, get lost kid, before I call the cops on you.'

Scalphunter shook his head in mild contempt for the man. The kid shook his head mournfully as well.

'Oh mister you shouldn' go sayin' t'ings like dat; you a guest in my patch, homme. You got to be polite or mebbe, I gon get upset.'

'Why you little…' The tourist whipped out a rather large and chunky looking cellular phone. Clearly he was some kind of yuppie. Quick as a lightning bolt the kid had grabbed the phone from the man's hand.

'Hey!'

'Merci m'sieur dis will sell for a pretty penny.' The kid clipped the phone to his jeans and grinned like a wicked cherub.

The tourist reached out to make an angry, clumsy grab for the boy. Scalphunter's eyebrows flew up as the boy leapt like a cat up on top of the roof of the nearest mausoleum. No doubt about it this kid wasn't human.

'Give that back you little fu….' The tourist tried to pull the kid off his perch and the boy grinned at him sidling away easily.

'Now m'sieur,' the boy purred, 'you bein' insultin'. You dishonourin' de voodoo lady wit' your potty mouth; t'ink you need to pay to make it better.' He thrust out one small, grimy hand, 'Make it twenty dollars an' I let you go, even give you back de phone, oui?'

The tourist made a strangled sound of disgust and defeat and pulled out his wallet. Scalphunter caught the bright spark of avaricious glee in the boy's face. However when the tourist looked up the kid just smiled blandly at him and accepted the twenty without a word. To Scalphunter's surprise he even returned the phone.

'Have a nice day mister.' The boy mocked him and jumped off the mausoleum roof, scuttling away. 'An' enjoy de rest of your stay in Nawlin's!'

After a few seconds pointless cursing the tourist started to hurry for the exit. Scalphunter continued to watch; the street kid was tracking the tourist, slipping in and out of the tombs. He had the soap in a sock loose in his hands and was prowling like a cat. At the last moment the tourist seemed to realise he was being stalked and he started to run, but it did him no good.

The street kid burst out of the rows of mausoleums like a cheetah from the savannah brush. The kid then vaulted from one tomb to another, bouncing through the air in a virtuoso demonstration of inhuman agility as he closed on the man. Scalphunter watched him leap, stretch, and come down on the man's back, the soap cosh crashing down on the man's head with a precision that spoke of long practice.

The tourist went down with a strangled grunt of surprise and pain. The kid rode him down and smashed the cosh down on his head once more. Scalphunter watched intrigued, as the kid hauled the man over onto his back and immediately filched his phone and wallet before inspecting the rest of his clothing for valuables. He had the man stripped of his money, his wristwatch, and his shoes in less than a minute.

It was then that the kid looked up briefly. At some point in the ambush he had lost his sunglasses and the squinted gaze that shied away from the harsh sunlight was that of an infant demon's; red on black and glowing.

Well, well, it looked like he'd found another mutie kid.

Vaguely Scalphunter wondered if the boss would be interested in this one? He was about the same age as the Summers brat and obviously didn't have any parents or guardians who would miss him.

Scalphunter decided to follow the gutter boy and see where he went, who his handler was (because there was no way there wasn't someone running the boy) and find out what he could about the kid. Then he'd give Essex a call and let him know that he'd found another little orphaned mutant brat for him to play with.

* * *

**New Orleans 1991: August 29****th**

Scalphunter had been watching the little mutie street thief for a few weeks and in that time he'd gathered a pretty complete picture of the kid's circumstances. He was pretty well known on the streets; part of a street thieving gang of minors run by a man by the name of Fagan. Officially this Fagan had no affiliation to the main crime families of the city, the Assassins and the Thieves Guild; unofficially Fagan had connections to the Thieves. It made sense and would explain why he hadn't been run out of town for running a kiddie thief racket.

The red eyed little freak boy was something of a cause celebre in the back alleys, Diable Blanc he was called; the white devil. Apparently the kid was one of Fagan's top earners and Scalphunter had heard the Patriarch of the Thieves Guild had plans for him, though hadn't made contact yet.

From careful observation of the mutant boy Scalphunter also knew that he had a tentative friendship with the eight year old daughter of the assassin's guildmaster. Scalphunter had little time for the archaic and anachronistic politics of Guild crime in the city but he could clearly see that the red eyed boy was at the centre of any number of schemes being built up around his ears like an invisible trap. If the boss wanted the kid he'd have to make a move to grab him quick, before the Guild's closed in.

Of course Essex was playing his usual game; sure the boss had been very interested to hear about a mutant boy of the same age as the Summers whelp, running loose and wild in New Orleans but until he had more detailed information on the boy and his genetic potential the boss wasn't prepared to make a definitive move. So, Essex had told him to acquire a sample of the boy's blood for DNA analysis; easier said than done.

Scalphunter had learned the kid's patterns already. He knew that the kid split his time between pickpocketing along the Rue Royale and jumping rubes in the St Charles. Right now however, he was loitering in the shadows of a live oak along a quaintly picturesque residential street in the Garden District waiting for his little assassin gal-pal to slip out of the an assassin garden party and join him.

Scalphunter shook his head amusedly, the little punk was good at avoiding the notice of the flatscans but he didn't know squat about avoiding the attention of other predators.

'Hey kid,'

Scalphunter laughed out loud at the boy's response to being startled out of his wits. He let out a hiss like a shocked house cat and bolted up into the lowest branches of the tree; evidently the kid's survival instincts were pretty well ingrained.

A grimy face half hidden by ill-fitting sunglasses peered down at him from the border of leaves. Scalphunter came to stand directly under the tree and looked up at the boy.

'They call you Remy don't they?' He asked and the boy's expression was a picture. Awkwardly perched on a bough he was basically trapped; there was nowhere to go except up and the tree wasn't all that easy to climb.

'Come down here boy, I want to talk to you.'

With a rustle of leaves and bark the boy vanished and it sounded like he had decided to try for higher ground after all. Scalphunter withdrew his sidearm, screwed on the silencer and, listening intently to the sounds of climbing, aimed for a spot through the leaves just above where he thought the kid was.

He fired, heard a startled yelp and a moment later the little brat was falling out of the tree. Scalphunter made no attempt to catch him and instead watched as the boy flipped, twisted, and landed with feline grace on his feet.

The kid had lost his glasses again and almost comically wide red eyes stared at him in a very pale face. The little punk remained crouched; body trembling with tension and ready to explode into motion at a moment's notice.

' I want to talk to you boy, no more games or next time the bullet will be for you; got that?'

The child stared at him, eyes darting wildly around for help or a method of escape. At one point it looked like the kid was trying to estimate the chances of wrestling the gun from him. Scalphunter waited for the boy to make up his mind.

'D…d'accord.' He stuttered, 'Unnastood, mister.'

Scalphunter nodded pleased that the scrap had some brains to match his moxie. 'Good; now get up and follow me.'

The boy shook his head, 'N…non…' he started to back away against the tree trunk. Scalphunter raised the gun and clicked the safety off for good measure.

'Either you come willingly or I shoot you, boy,' he shrugged, 'don't matter to me which; I got someone who's real interested in finding out more about you.'

'You said talk,' the boy said either suicidal or braver than Scalphunter had thought, 'You never said not'ing 'bout goin' anywhere wit' you. You changing de rules, homme, how'm I s'posed to trust a body dat do dat?'

Scalphunter centred the barrel of the gun level with the kid's forehead, 'Don't need your trust kid, just your obedience. Hit you in the arm, you'll go into shock and start bleeding out pretty quick; you won't be able to fight and I'll have what I need. I'm giving you a choice kid, don't be dumb now.'

He let the kid have a moment to think this through, allowing for the fact that by his reckoning the boy was no more than seven or eight years old and might not understand every word he'd said. Still he'd heard this kid had the cunning of a fox and the brain of a natural grifter; he figured the White Devil would make the right choices.

The boy swallowed audibly, 'What you wantin' homme, cuz I'm telling you now I ain't gon do you.'

Scalphunter laughed, the kid sure did have more stones than sense that was for certain. 'Don't worry pup, I don't do children.'

The boy frowned and cocked his head to the side, 'You ain't freaked out by my eyes, is you?' he asked clearly having just realised this.

'Nope,' Scalphunter shrugged, 'Work for a man with eyes like you; freaks don't bother me.'

'You do?'

Totally forgetting the fact that Scalphunter was still holding a gun on him the kid moved forward face alight with some strange rapturous awe, 'What's dis homme's name? You not be shittin' me right? You know a body dat got eyes like me? I ain't never knowed o' a body dat got eyes like me b'for.'

The stream of babble stopped abruptly and the boy glared at him, 'Dey say dat Remy be de Devil's own oui? Dat who you work for homme? You all dressed in black like a Reaper Man, your boss de Devil or sum't'ing?'

Scalphunter swallowed the urge to laugh. There was something about this kid; the shimmer and glimmer in his eyes as he yammered on in a rapid stream of consciousness that made him feel like his brain was being gently stroked all over by velvet and cotton batting. Scalphunter wondered if this was some mutie power the boy had.

'Maybe kid, that a problem for you?'

The red eyed boy stared at him with a look of complete contempt on his face, 'Are you screwin' wit' me homme? Why de fuck would I care? Been tol' I be de Devil's chile since I was knee high. Alla dem be pokin' at me an' beatin' on me for my eyes like I be damaged goods or somet'ing.'

Anger blazed in those eyes and Scalphunter felt oddly affected by the memory of pain and torment he saw there. Yeah, the kid definitely had some minor talent going on; Psi maybe, or some kind of hypnosis.

The kid grinned at him suddenly, 'I always knowed dat de Devil be comin' for me though; dem all say it an' dis boy done marked de words.'

He looked at the man with a shrewd, impish intelligence, 'Hey homme, you gon make dem shit-face bastards dat kick dis boy down pay now, oui? Dat what de Devil gone sent you here for, to take care o' his own?'

Scalphunter laughed then. Damn this boy was a live one; unlike that whipped little twerp Summers. 'Sure kid, you give me the names and we'll get right to it. One thing you got to do for me first though, huh kid?'

The boy's eyes narrowed sharply glowing like embers, 'Like what homme? Tol' you I ain't rubbin' you off or not'ing.'

Scalphunter rolled his eyes, 'Boy I told you I don't do kids. Nah, my boss wants a sample of your blood; make sure you really are a Devil child, see?' Scalphunter figured the best way to get the kid to cooperate was to play along.

'Blood; what are you homme a vampire or som'ting? Or one o' dem Anne Rice fans? I had one o' dem chase me through de Quarter cuz he done gone an' sawed my eyes an' he be figurin' I one o' dem folks from dose books cause o' my Cajun patter an,'' the kid shrugged sucking in a breath of air mid ramble, 'Weren' pretty homme, de rube din't even have any t'ing worth stealin' on him.'

Scalphunter restrained more laughter. The little freak was obviously not right in the head but for an eight year old he sure had a mouth on him. Scalphunter, who didn't like anyone, found himself liking this boy. In his opinion he had more going for him than that sickly, skinny Summers brat. This boy was a predator to the marrow of his malnourished bones; Summers was a victim pure and simple.

'C'mon boy, I'm not going to bite you. I'm going to take a sample with a needle.' He frowned thoughtfully, 'You ever had a blood test before, or any shots?'

The boy scowled at him, skipping along the street trying to catch up with Scalphunter's longer strides, 'I ain't got no diseases, homme. Fagan done gone got de docteur to prick me wit' his needles an' dat a whiles back. He don' like us gettin' bad sick on account of de fact dat den he got to spend money on makin' us well.'

Scalphunter nodded filing that away to inform Essex, who would want to know. If the kid was receiving basic inoculation and medical care it would help matters; Essex didn't like impurities and weaknesses in his test subjects unless he put them there.

Last year he'd given the Summers kid the measles because he'd theorised it might provoke an early onset of his mutant power; it hadn't, and the Summers whelp had nearly died of a raging fever. Scalphunter still remembered how irritated Essex had been. He looked keenly down at the boy still babbling on happily at his side. This kid had the resilience and constitution of a sewer rat; a dose of measles wasn't going to stop him.

'Hey homme?'

'Yeah?'

'You got a name, or do I just call you Reaper Man?'

Scalphunter shook his head amused, 'Call me what you like kid.' He looked at the boy, 'You hungry?'

The dirty, cherubic face grew wary, 'I ain't eatin' not'ing you be givin' me, homme. You t'ink I'm stupid? You gon dope me, do me, an' dump in ole man river,' the red and black eyes were haunted, 'seen it happen me.'

Scalphunter nodded; he'd expect nothing less from a kid raised by the mean streets, 'Macdonald's?'

The boy blinked, 'Oh, sure.' He said. Food from a public fastfood joint that he could see packaged was safe and no gutter rat would turn down the offer of free, hot food.

'You shoulda done said dat b'for; ain't got no problem wit' Maccy D's. Course Tante says dat it be Devil food cuz it made of bad stuff, but I always figure if'n it devil food den it bon for me, non? Not dat I get it much. Non, don' get not'ing but de shit Fagan done let us eat an' most o' dat be rotten.'

Scalphunter looked down on the boy hard, 'Christ kid; does that mouth come with an off switch?'

'Screw you.' The eight year old said without missing a beat.

'Like I said boy, don't do kids.'

He steered the talkative urchin towards the nearest fast food outlet fairly confident that getting the blood sample would be relatively simple so long as he plied the kid with food and continued to let him believe he really did work for the devil, and hell, Essex was close enough that it wasn't even a lie.

* * *

**Nebraska 1991: September 2****nd**

Scalphunter watched Essex run Remy's blood through his machines with a strange impatience. Despite what he knew was bubbling with the Guilds he didn't hold out much hope that the kid would live all that long on the streets. Scalphunter curled his lips: hope? Since when had he ever used such a word or put any stock in the notion. The damn kid had obviously addled his brains with his non-stop talking.

He was interrupted from his musings by Essex's soft chuckle. Scalphunter looked over sharply.

'Well, well, one of the Black Womb children; interesting.' Sinister called up a holographic projection of the readout from the DNA analysis and touched a finger to various points along the scrawl of numbers and equations dancing in thin air.

'You say this boy is an obvious mutant?' Essex demanded of Scalphunter.

'Only the eyes,' Scalphunter paused for a moment, 'well I guess he moves too smooth and too agile for a flatscan but that's only noticeable when he's back flipping ten foot in the air.' He added sourly.

'Heightened agility?' Essex queried eyes still glued to the hologram.

'And then some,' Scalphunter muttered.

'Any other obvious mutagenic potential?' the way Essex posed the question made Scalphunter take note. Clearly the man had seen something in the readouts.

Scalphunter paused to consider, 'Kid's got a way about him; talks ten to the dozen but has a way of taking you along for the ride. Any other kid I'd have smacked him bloody to shut him up, but this one has a knack of getting under your skin. Had a feeling it had to do with his eyes, but I'm not the doctor.' He shrugged.

'Hmm, indeed?' Essex seemed distracted and he did not ask for further clarification regarding the boy's strange way about him. Scalphunter decided to go ahead and ask; if the boss didn't want to answer he wouldn't.

'So you want the kid or not?'

Finally Essex turned around to face him and smiled; Scalphunter resisted the old impulse to shiver at that cold, needle-point smile. 'Oh indeed, bring the boy to me. I would see how my work has evolved in the wider world.'

'Your work?' Scalphunter was sure he did not really want an answer.

Essex turned and called up a monitor projection that showed the Summers kid being tormented by the other children in the orphanage, or the 'controls' as Essex referred to them. Scalphunter rolled his eyes; Summers was a wuss. In contrast Remy would have beat the crap out of all those kids with his soap in a sock.

'Yes; do you suppose I cannot recognise my own handiwork? How old did you say the child was?'

Scalphunter shrugged, 'The kid don't know; he's been on the streets for as long as he can remember. Says he was abandoned because of his eyes. He reckons he's eight and that seems to be the consensus among those that run him.'

'Ah, of course,' Essex nodded to himself, 'Blackwomb produced many failures in the first batch from Almogordo; I had suspected that the second generation might prove more valuable. It would be interesting to discover which of the Blackwomb children produced this specimen; his genetic potential is impressive.'

Scalphunter did not pretend to understand what Essex meant; he knew the man had run a freakshow breeding project out of New Mexico in the mid to late fifties but Scalphunter hadn't been involved with that. Essex had used some bitch of his called Mueller to run that show.

He supposed it made some sense that the kid could be the offspring of one of Essex and Mueller's experiments. Essex had a tendency to abandon projects and let them go to seed only to return to them years later with renewed vigour.

'I'll go bring in the boy then.'

Scalphunter felt oddly uncertain. On the one hand he was damn sure Remy would get himself killed living wild in the Big Easy, on the other hand being dead sure beat some of the things the boss liked to do to his test subjects. Still Essex was the boss and the boss wanted to the boy therefore Scalphunter would bring him in.

* * *

**1991: New Orleans September 5****th**

It had taken Scalphunter over two days to track down word on Remy. He had begun to worry that the kid had croaked just in the few days since he'd seen him last. That worry intensified when it became apparent that Remy was missing from Fagan's hovel and none of his fellow kiddie thieves had seen him for over a day.

Scalphunter was a man used to hunting down his prey and, despite the torrential ran that battered the city, he prowled the streets and back alleys for the missing brat. Essex would be pissed if a new specimen was brought to his attention only to find out it had died in the interim.

Having exhausted all the possibilities of the Quarter, the Garden District and even out to where the Assassins and the Thieves hid out in dilapidated antebellum mansions south of the city, Scalphunter now found himself dripping wet and skulking through St Charles number one very much like the spectre of death.

He was about to give up when he caught sight of a bloodied sock lying on the sodden grass by a broken down mausoleum. Walking over to the tomb he crouched down to examine the sock. He could smell the broken soap shattered into pieces in the toe of the sock. The fabric was liberally stained with blood.

'Shit.' He almost growled.

The chances of this belonging to anyone other than Remy were infinitesimal; something had happened to the kid. It was pure luck that he happened to look up and see the twin embers peering at him from inside the darkness of the busted tomb.

'Remy – hey kid, that you?'

The pin pricks of red light went out and the tiniest scrapping of cloth on stone betrayed the kid's movement as he squeezed his eyes closed. Scalphunter moved closer slowly; he knew how fast and violent the little punk could be and knew that one Big Mac with the works wasn't going to earn him any trust in the kid's mind.

As he crept closer he could hear the unhealthy wheezing of the boy's breathing and could smell blood and filth. Remy lay on his side in the doorway of one of the mausoleums. He was curled up protectively but it was easy to see the welts, cuts and bruises all over every inch of exposed flesh on the kid. His breath was rasping like a bellows and he looked and sounded sick.

The strange eyes opened and the kid tried to curl defensively in on himself, then a spark of recognition lit behind those devilish eyes.

'M'sieur Reaper Man?'

Scalphunter hunkered down as the kid tried to raise his head; bruises garlanded his throat and his cheek was swollen suggesting a fracture. The little boy reached out a hand to him and Scalphunter saw that his thumb and forefinger were broken.

'Am I dead m'sieur? Have you gone an' come to take me to hell now?' Instead of fear there was hope in that tremulous voice.

Scalphunter was pretty sure he did not have a heart so this twisting feeling in his chest could not be his heart breaking. A surge of anger filled him as he looked at the pathetic sight huddled on the ground at his feet.

'Shit kid, what happened?'

The dulled eyes, ancient and tired in a terribly young face just stared at him. 'Dem all din't like it, what you did for dis boy a few days back. Dem shoulda learned dem dere lesson but dey din't,' the kid's breath hitched and his eyes closed as the child's strength seemed to leave him. He shuddered and wheezed.

'Dey come for me, an' dey done beat me sore bad dis time….den dey gone an' broked dis boy's fingers; can't snitch no wallets wit' busted hands, non? Fagan gone turned me out after dat.' The child curled in on himself, coughing wetly as he tried to move his broken fingers and flinched in pain.

Scalphunter cursed himself silently. He should have known better than to mess with the internal politics of the streets; even in a shithole like this town. In fact he should have just shot the no account thugs Remy had pointed out to him instead of dishing out the beating the boy had asked him to. Spineless thugs like that needed eradicating. They were the sort only good for whaling on a kid who couldn't defend himself; this time, however, they'd picked the wrong kid.

'Damn boy, I'm sorry.'

The words had left Scalphunter's lips before he'd realised he was going to say them. Sorry was not a word that left his lips that often. Feeling like a man possessed he reached out to brush the kid's filthy hair from his pallid face.

The kid didn't answer him or respond in anyway and Scalphunter didn't bother to wait any longer. He lifted the kid over his shoulder (receiving only the faintest of whimpers to indicate that it hurt the boy).

Scalphunter left quickly but before he did he scooped up the sock and shoved it into his pocket; he had a feeling Remy would want that back when he was better. Some kids had teddy bears; Remy had a bar of soap in a sock.

He returned to Essex as fast as he could using flatscan means. Throughgout the journey he cursed the luck that for all the boss' influence he still had to travel commercial. Considering all the power at Essex's disposal would it kill the man to put together some kind of teleportation or instant site to site transportation? He'd have to speak with the boss about that.

* * *

**1991: Nebraska September 7****th**

Essex eyed the battered infant on his table sceptically. 'What happened?'

'Figure the boy took a beating from someone,' Scalphunter offered laconically, 'happens all the time with street rats; figure he picked up a chest infection or something sleeping rough and the beating made it worse.' He shrugged.

'Indeed?' Essex peeled open one of the boy's eyes and noted the unusual colouration of the Sclera and iris. 'You said you suspected that he would soon be removed from the streets?'

The child was running a high fever and most likely had a bout of pneumonia. Essex had already placed him on a drip. The child was also malnourished and he needed more calcium as his teeth were quite atrocious. Essex already had in mind a compound that would insure his adult teeth would grow in healthy; although a small issue he disliked imperfections in his work.

'Jean-Luc Lebeau of the Thieves Guild keeps tabs on the kid; rumour has it he had something to do with the kid being snitched from the hospital at birth.'

Scalphunter shrugged as he continued, 'He might have something to do with why no records remain of the kid's birth or admission too.' Scalphunter frowned then, lip curling dismissively, 'Still he's had years to do something with the boy and he's done shitall so far.'

Essex nodded; it was an irritation that he had been unable to ascertain conclusively which of the Blackwomb subjects had given birth to the boy. Nathaniel had narrowed the list down to two or three females, and he was sure it was a female that had passed on the X-factor, but he could not determine which precisely. It did not matter; the mother was inferior to the child and most likely dead in any respect. With the boy in his grasp his progenitor was of no consequence.

Essex was rather pleased to find that Mueller had finally borne fruit of the womb that was of use to him.

'I will necessitate the beginnings of recover for the child, but I wish you to place him, anonymously, in a hospital back in his home city.'

He told his minion as he took a few more samples for analysis and ran a brain scan. He suspected that the boy's full mutant potential would not begin to emerge until his early or mid adolescence and it was unlikely that the greatest extent of his mutancy would activate until he had reached full maturity; perhaps as late as his mid-twenties though it was possible development would be earlier than that as external factors often played a part in the emergence of mutant abilities.

'You don't want the kid?' Scalphunter seemed surprised. Essex had not missed his odd affection for the subject and noted it for later reflection.

'On the contrary, I am very pleased you have brought the child to my attention. However unlike Summers, I feel this one will develop to greater potential in his native environment. I shall monitor his progression remotely by inserting a locator chip into his lower cerebellum.'

Scalphunter watched him sceptically, 'Thought you might want to keep this one with Summers; see how they compare?'

Essex arched his brows in amusement, 'Oh I have every intention of running comparative analysis; that is why I wish to place one subject in the wild, if you will, and one will remain under my close supervision. I want to see how such drastically different nurturing will affect their development.'

Essex paused and considered for a moment, 'However for the sake of the experiments longevity you should remain in periodic contact with the child and continue to monitor his development until such time as he is of an age to be of use.'

'Of use?' Scelphunter frowned.

'Indeed. This child is a savage; barely more than an animal raised without the cultured restraints of morality and compassion.' Essex's eyes gleamed, 'He is the basest of creatures; unfettered by societal restraints that might hinder his natural development.'

'He's just a streetkid,' Scalphunter actually deigned to argue. Essex decided not to rebuke the man for his impudence this time.

'For the moment, however, if you are correct in your intelligence, he is soon to be brought into the fold of the Thieves Guild; no doubt to be further trained in criminality.' Essex rubbed a thumb to his chin speculatively, 'I surmise that this boy will be of great use to me in the future.'

'So you're just going to let him go and watch what happens until then?' Scalphunter couldn't keep the surprise from his voice.

Essex smiled, 'Indeed; you are forgetting that the great Darwin himself was first and foremost a botanist.' Essex looked down at the unconscious child on his operating table with cold and proprietary triumph.

'One must always remember, after all, to let the wild bloom grow as it will within the garden.'


	11. Chapter 11

_A/N: Gator Bait and Slightly I owe you an apology. To answer your question from the last chpt; Remy was beaten by the local street bullies he asked Scalphunter to 'deal' with in return for a blood sample. I should have written the scene where Scalphunter scares the thugs who had been beating Remy because of his strange eyes but the chapter was running quite long and it wasn't hugely important so I skipped it. I am sorry for that because if you didn't get that part it is because of lazy writing on my end. I hope this clears that up for you and thanks for your interest and reviews ;) _

**Chapter Ten: Condition**

She slipped into the medbay while Warren was interrogating Hank about Psylocke's condition. The way she figured it she'd have about two minutes to do this and get away before Warren or Hank or both of them came back.

She didn't have anytime to second guess herself.

She slipped up to the bed, confident that she had found the right switch to turn off the security footage for this sector of the medbay. Looking down on Betsy she expected to feel at least some sympathy and was shocked to find she felt none whatsoever. All she saw was the woman who could ruin everything.

She knew what she had to do.

She pulled the glove from her hand and stared down at her bare skin for a handful of seconds. Her throat was dry and she could hear her heart pounding in her ears. Could she really do this?

Yes, yes she could.

Touching her fingertips to Psylocke's brow she felt the pins and needles tingle in the pads of her fingers that indicated the start of the power transfer. She clamped down on her bottom lip and willed herself not to fight the influx of alien thoughts, feelings, and memories that sluiced into her mind.

In the blinking of an eye, in the time it took to jerk her hand away, she saw Elizabeth Braddock's life roll out like a tattered silken ribbon before her eyes.

She was the daughter of a British Aristocrat in a time when the aristocracy in England were less important than soccer players' wives. She saw herself strutting down a Milan catwalk by day and playing super spy by night. She knew what it was to have a singing voice that could make her millions and not to use it. She felt the pleasure of Warren's wings stroking over her naked flesh in the depths of the night. She saw first hand what it felt like to plunge her mind like a knife into another mind and tear out the truth as she saw fit.

She saw the truth that was Psylocke in its entirety.

'Sugar ya got issues,' she muttered as a faintly greenish spark of unreal light speared from the back of her bare hand; for a moment she simply studied the blade with detached interest.

'Oh look, it's the totality of mah psi-potential,' she snickered and sing-songed Psylocke's oft-stated phrase. She'd never understood why the woman always harped on about that; they all _knew _what her powers were after all. It wasn't like anyone cared for a running narrative the whole way through.

'Some people really need to get ovah themselves,' She added cattily not noticing that her accent had shifted into an odd amalgam of Deep South and cut glass British diction.

She looked down at Psylocke's sleeping form and felt her resolve harden. Ironically it was the echo of Betsy Braddock's uncompromising personality in her head that allowed her to carry through with her plans.

She slammed the psi-blade into the sleeping woman's head.

'Ya a second rate Ninja and a lousy spy, Betts; Ah am ta see that ya ain't going ta be tellin' any tales about things that don't concern ya either.'

It was easy enough to find the fresh memory of Betsy discovering the truth about Sinister and the massacre, and all the rest of it inside Psylocke's mind. It was easy to borrow Psylocke's own knowledge of psychic power to wipe all memory of those facts from the other woman's brain; so easy in fact that she found herself wondering what all the fuss was about Psi's having to train so hard to harness their powers –all them telepaths should trying dealing with her powers then they'd quit they're complaining.

'Right sugar, that oughta teach ya ta go pokin' ya nose in where it ain't welcome.'

Rogue withdrew her hand and pulled her glove back on; she could already feel Psylocke's powers and personality seeping away like morning mist. She didn't know why some personalities lingered and others dissipated immediately but she was glad Betsy hadn't stuck around; she was a cold hearted bitch and Rogue didn't like her one bit. Rogue leaned over the twitching form on the bed with an oddly vindictively smile.

'Some secrets need ta stay hidden,' she whispered before straightening up, brushing her hair back and turning smartly on her heel to move soundlessly away from the helpless Psylocke.

One minute and thirty seconds after she had entered Rogue reactivated the security camera and walked out of the medbay before either Hank or Warren realised anything was amiss.

She had done only what she had to do.

* * *

'Sir – we've got problems.'

Sinister frowned down at the intercom speaker set into his chair arm, 'Report Arclight.'

'Creed and Polaris have bolted, sir. The Falls Edge compound is trashed; the X-Factor losers are all inside unconscious. It looks like Dane shorted out their brains and all Forge's tech with a magnetic pulse before she hightailed it.'

Sinister frowned, 'With Creed?'

'He isn't with the rest of them so I'd say so. Scrambler's hacked into the securities mainframe, or at least what's left of it, and we have a camera feed into the room where Creed was held.'

Sinister rubbed his thumb over his chin, 'Indeed and of what relevance is that? You should be tracking Dane and Creed; the remaining members of X-Factor are of no concern.'

'Yeah, but boss, I think they left you a message.' Arclight sounded just a little hesitant.

'A message?' Sinister sat up in his chair, 'What makes you believe I am the intended recipient of any message?'

'Because it's been clawed into the steel walls and it reads like this,' Arclight took a breath in preparation for recital, '_Tick Tock; we hear the clock. Our garden grows with blood and tears no longer. _

Sinister pursed his lips gaze jerking to his monitors. This development was unexpected and not appreciated by the scientist. His thoughts buzzed and twisted as he gave orders to his minions.

'Arclight track Dane and Creed, but do not engage without first contacting me.' He pursed his lips in a thin, displeased line, 'It would seem your erstwhile comrades are attempting a full rebellion.'

There was a pause wherein Arclight's confusion regards his words and her former colleagues actions was almost audible over the communications channel. Then she snorted and with the resilience of the dim-witted and inferior dismissed that which she did not understand from mind.

'Whatever, we'll get right on it – but are you sure we can't have some fun with the X-Factor losers while we're here?'

Sinister scowled, 'You have your orders Arclight; I trust I don't need to remind you what happens to those in my employ who disobey my wishes?'

'You mean I'll end up like the Cajun-cutie and join Xavier's saps?' Arclight laughed bitingly, 'Shit that is a fate worse than death; especially if I end up hooking up with that Mississippi bi…'

Sinister cut off the transmission while Arclight was still talking; although an obedient tool her personality disorders and hatred of the world at large made Arclight a trial to deal with. If she should die in battle Sinister would have to seriously consider the relative merits of reviving further Arclight clones in the future.

The scientist glanced down at the antique watch in his hands, 'So thief, you are playing a game are you?' he snapped open the face of the watch and watched the second hand travel its eternal circuit meditatively.

'Do you truly believe you can best me at a challenge of wits, Lebeau?' Sinister tapped a finger to the watch face, 'Or perhaps I am not the target of your insurrection?'

Rising from his chair Sinister activated the tracker chip in Scalphunter's skull and looked out at the world through his primary minion's eyes. Excellent, Scalphunter was on Lebeau's tail already and…….hmmm, wasn't this interesting? It looked as if the thief's destination was Millstone Arizona.

'You always did have a woeful penchant for superstition and melodrama Lebeau. Returning to Millstone seems an unwise choice of action.'

Sinister smiled, 'But I am sure you have some plan in mind. I would expect nothing less from one of mine.'

Sinister returned to his chair and steepled his fingers; Lebeau, Dane, and Creed had obviously come together of their own volition and before schedule. No doubt they believed they could better escape him by working together; an inherently foolish notion but one which played very nicely into his own calculations with a few minor adjustments.

In fact all in all this deviation from his predetermined strategy might prove to be of great advantage to the scientist. He had thought, after all, that he might have to risk the 'wrath' of the X-men in retrieving Lebeau and Dane and while he feared none in that group he would rather not risk his other projects by engaging the X-men on mass. Of course now it appeared his wayward Marauder elite were burning their own bridges and saving him the bother altogether.

How very obliging of them all.

'Bravo little thief, you have created quite an intriguing drama.' Sinister smiled in the darkness of his lab. 'I look forward to seeing what you have planned next.'

* * *

'Alright people,' Scott spoke up and the men and women in the room quietened down immediately.

As always, the quiet, introverted boy inside of the soul of the adult Scott Summers found himself amazed that all these accomplished men and women were prepared to listen to him. Just like he always did, however, he pushed that whispering insecurity aside and focused on what needed to be done.

'I don't need to tell anyone that we have a situation here.' He began with just the faintest hint of wryness that received the ghost of a smile from Jean in response and a sour snort from Logan.

'A situation?' Warren's wings ruffled with pent up tension as he straddled the back of a dining chair brought into the main parlour for this meeting.

'The situation is that Gambit attacked Betsy and Bishop and no one seems to be doing anything about it. We should never have let the man live here; he was clearly dangerous.'

'That is not true!' Ororo's voice snapped through the room like a sudden frost.

'Oh please Storm, I know he's your friend but I think that is colouring your judgement. He's gone and he's left two X-men injured; that makes him a threat in my book.'

'I am not injured,' Bishop rumbled from the back of the room where he stood 'guard' near the door.

Scott closed his eyes behind his visor and asked the cosmos for patience; the situation was fraught with tension and ready to blow like a powder keg. Scott thought about the best way to ensure things didn't erupt into violence and in-fighting. He focused first on Archangel.

Warren was his friend, a very dear friend, and Scott knew that if it was Jean lying on that medbay bed he'd be equally angry. Still the fact was Warren had been prejudiced against Gambit from the very beginning. That dislike had always had less to do with Gambit's 'threat level' than it did the fact that the man came from poverty in a poor southern state whereas Warren was a billionaire New Yorker.

As the product of an orphanage education and numerous dubious foster homes Scott did not have a lot of sympathy with his friend's prejudices. Ironically Gambit's upbringing was about the only aspect of the man Scott felt he could actually sympathise with. There but for the grace of god go I, and all the rest of it, Scott thought sourly. He took a breath and did his best to keep his own emotions under the control.

'Warren we all saw the tapes,' He began levelly, 'I agree that, yes, Gambit has a lot to answer for, but it was also clear that Psylocke was the instigator of the fight. Psylocke also had Gambit pinned when she _chose_ to use her psi powers aggressively against a teammate; it could just as easily be Gambit lying in the medbay right now.'

'You can't honestly be defending the man?' Warren's feathers were twitching with fury.

'Why can't he?' Bobby's bored voice floated over the room from where he slouched in the window seat like an overgrown adolescent. 'I mean it's not like anyone else, except Storm, is going to take Gambit's side.'

Everyone in the room turned to stare at Bobby. He looked back at them blankly.

'What?'

Ororo cocked her head to the side curiously, 'I did not expect that you would speak in defence of Remy. You and he are not close.'

Bobby rolled his eyes and quit drawing frost over the windowpane, 'So we're not planning to elope or anything. Jeez, we've lived in the same house for three years; I don't have to be best friends with Gambit to give him the benefit of the doubt.'

Ororo smiled at him from where she stood tall and composed under pressure in the centre of the room, 'Thank you Robert.'

She turned to look rather pointedly at Warren. Warren glared at Bobby somewhat aggrieved.

'You wouldn't be saying that if Betsy was your girlfriend.'

He muttered but by his tone of voice Scott knew that the fight had left him. Warren might not like Gambit, he might be exceedingly angry with the man, and he might be a bit of a hothead at times who didn't always thing before he lost his cool but Warren was, at heart, a decent man.

Bobby grinned inanely back at Warren, which was his stock defence when in sticky situations.

'Oh come off it, Warren! We all know that Betsy's been….well, kinda _unhinged_ since that whole Crimson Dawn incident and she's never liked Gambit.' Bobby shrugged in a gesture that would have looked better on a fifteen year old, not a twenty three five year old, 'Hell, most of this team is headed straight for the funny farm; we just spend all our time with our heads up our asses and don't notice.'

Logan laughed out loud at that and Rogue, who had been sitting so quietly in the paisley armchair that Scott had almost forgotten she was there, rolled her eyes and muttered darkly, 'Ain't that the truth sugar.'

'Plus,' Bobby said with an impish light in his eyes that could only mean trouble, 'If I were you Warren I'd want Gambit back and pronto,' the grin grew even wider, 'unless you and Betts want a fifty percent hike in your rent that is.'

'What?' Warren almost snarled. It was a decidedly strange sight and sound but then, Scott thought just a little unkindly, if you wanted to hurt a Worthington you hit him in his wallet.

Bobby beamed hugely as he looked around the room; the expression on his face was the one he wore when he was about to deliver a punch line or had just rigged one of his patented practical jokes. Scott braced himself to prevent imminent bloodshed as Bobby spoke again.

'Didn't you know Warren?' He asked his friend in a voice that was all innocence and light, 'Gambit's been paying full rent and board, the same amount as you and Betsy contribute to the mansion funds, for as long as he's been here. In fact, he stumped up a lot of the ready cash we needed for the re-build after Onslaught trashed the place.'

Bobby savoured the looks of shock and surprise that coloured everyone's faces, 'Yeah, in fact he kinda owns the roof,' another shrug, 'if you total up the contribution he made to get that fixed up quick, I mean. So really, none of us can yell at him for camping out on it all the time.'

'And the Professor allowed that -he took money from _Gambit_?'

Warren couldn't stay seated anymore and leapt from the chair, wings flaring out. Scott noticed that Bobby was not the only person in the room who seemed to be savouring Warren's outrage; Logan was grinning wide enough that Scott could see his sharp incisors.

'I can't believe that the professor would take money from a thief.' Warren said stubbornly his prejudices showing in all their primary colours. Ororo's eyes narrowed dangerously. Scott began to calculate who he'd need to subdue first before a fight broke out in the parlour.

Bobby blew a raspberry effectively shattering the dangerous atmosphere. 'War, the prof. used to take money from Magneto and the government,' he deadpanned, 'It should be obvious to anyone that Charles is a total money whore; he'll take it from anyone, anywhere, so long as he can use it for good.'

Bobby continued in exaggeratedly disinterested tone of voice and Scott hid a smile. Bobby might be the class clown but he was also an excellent peace keeper.

'Hell Gambit's money is probably cleaner than a lot of the funds I've seen come through Charles' accounts.' Bobby said eying the people in the room carefully, 'Trust me on this; as an accountant I know it's not where the money comes from that counts, all that matters is that it _looks_ clean.'

A pall of silence fell over the room. Scott had known about Gambit's fiscal contributions to mansion funds because he was team leader and executor of Charles' estate in his absence. However it looked like very few others in the room had known. He could almost see people re-evaluating what they thought they knew about Gambit simply based on that fact. Once Scott judged the situation was a little calmer he spoke once more.

'This isn't the time to start throwing blame around. When Psylocke wakes up she can tell us what really happened.' He stated authoritatively and was greeted by a number of nods from the X-men in the room. Scott internalised a sigh of relief; maybe they could actually get through this with the team still intact, after all.

'Until then I think we need to make finding Gambit a priority,' he glanced at Jean who was perched on the edge of the parlour desk beside where he stood facing the room. She looked back at him steadily green eyes clear and forthright. Scott pursed his lips he was still angry that Jean had kept Gambit's connection to Sinister secret and was in fact still refusing to tell him anymore than she had, but now was not the time to deal with that. He had a team to lead everything else could wait.

'Some new information has come to light that suggests that maybe Gambit is in trouble, or at least could end up that way.' He told the team; it was inadequate and left a lot of questions but at the moment it was the best he could do.

To his surprise Rogue stirred herself to politely raise a hand for permission to talk. Scott raised his eyebrows in surprise Rogue did usually ask for permission before sharing a view. As always Joseph stood behind her chair like a large, vacant white shadow. Interestingly Rogue appeared to be ignoring him.

'Yes Rogue?'

'Did Beast say when Psylocke would wake up?'

Attention sharpened around the room at this point, all eyes fixing on Scott and Jean for the answer. Scott had known someone would ask that question of course, but he hadn't expected it to be Rogue.

Perhaps for the first time he truly realised just how divided this team had become. Even under the one roof it was a case of 'us and them'. Scott once again kept what he was feeling from showing on the outside. It didn't say much for the hopes of eventual mutant and human equality if the X-men themselves couldn't live in peace with one another, did it now? Scott shook his head to dismiss those pessimistic thoughts and focused on the question.

'Hank said that Betsy has a concussion and was likely knocked out by the backlash from breaking Gambit's shields. He thinks she should be awake within the next twelve hours, maybe less.' He focussed on Warren, who already knew but might need the reassurance of repetition, 'He checked on her for me just before the meeting began; he doesn't think there's any permanent damage.'

Scott's gaze was pulled back to Rogue who had been the one to pose the question. Rogue pulled on a lock of white hair falling into her face a little furtively, 'Thanks for the info, sugar.'

She looked down into her lap and curled her hands into fists. Joseph reached down to lay a supportive hand on her shoulder and much to Scott's fascination Rogue brusquely brushed off that comfort.

_Jean?_

_I know Scott, _his wife answered him calmly not needing to ask what the concern was,_ but we need to focus on one problem at a time; at least Rogue is taking Gambit's leaving calmly._

_Too calmly; I'd feel more comfortable if she was screaming and breaking things. This isn't like her._

_One problem at a time, fearless, one problem at a time, _he felt Jean's mental smile both gently sarcastic and loving like an embrace in his thoughts, _we don't need to go borrowing trouble after all. _

* * *

Henry Hank McCoy peered at the copy of the brainscan he had taken sometime approaching seven months ago when Gambit had ended up under his care for a three week duration while languishing in a vegetative coma.

'Oh my stars,' he murmured distractedly running a black needle sharp claw tip over a small line of scar tissue at the base of Gambit's skull as it appeared on the scan.

Several months ago Hank had noticed that mark and assumed it was the residue of some manner of head injury incurred years previously. He had in fact asked Gambit for confirmation of this surmise and at the time Hank had believed he'd received that confirmation; now he realised that Gambit had simple refrained from correcting him.

The scarring was not the result of accidental trauma instead those marks were surgical scars.

Hank picked the handkerchief he always kept near by and started to clean the lenses of his spectacles, more in habit than because the spectacles needed to be cleaned. On some level he had long suspected that there was something unusual about Gambit's mutation. Beyond the fact that as far as Hank knew he was the only man with his particular mutation to begin with that is.

Perhaps 'unusual' was the wrong word in this instance; as was often the case with the X-factor there was a lack of source material for viable comparisons between mutations. It was scientifically invalid to attempt a comparison between Rogue and Iceman's mutation for example, or even between energy converters within the same family like the Summers siblings: Scott and Alex.

Nevertheless Hank had maintained, from what little data he had to perform analysis on, that Gambit's mutation was…..well, _artificial_. Oh, the nature of his mutation was not artificial. Gambit was without doubt a born mutant, but the application of that mutation and the way it manifested did appear, if not completely artificially, then at the very least the result of quite considerable alteration.

Hank reviewed what scant knowledge he had of the other man's mutation and that which he felt was at least _mostly_ reliable; running the data through the phenomenal engine that was his own brain.

Gambit generated a bio-kinetic charge by converting kinetic energy in the cells of his body; Hank was certain of this. He could harness and release that energy explosively by infusing inanimate objects with that energy via tactile contact; every member of the team had witnessed the veracity of that assertion.

As Gambit himself would say: _d'accord so where be de problem mon ami_?

The problem was that the scientist in Hank had always pondered and been confounded by the loose ends in the otherwise very smooth running of Gambit's powers.

There had always been nagging questions he could not answer. Why only charge inanimate objects for example; what failsafe or psycho-somatic catalyst existed in Gambit's mind or in the very cells of his body to prevent his powers acting on living tissue?

The distinction was not natural; there was no physiological reason why Gambit was unable to charge animate matter. Theoretically, considering the energy he manipulated, almost any physical, gaseous, or liquid matter should have been susceptible to Gambit's power.

Hank had eventually concluded, simply due to the lack of any viable alternative and frustrated by getting nothing but evasion from the man himself, that Gambit must simply have trained himself not to charge living tissue. Hank had seen the development of similar self-imposed limitations in other mutants, after all.

At least that was what Hank had initially hypothesised; now he was forced to consider the possibility that it was a prohibition placed upon Gambit by Sinister instead and that of course changed everything. Hank frowned in irritation; although he understood and respected Jean's circumspect attitude towards revealing Gambit's secrets, it was still very frustrating.

Hank sighed, deep in thought, and absently pulled the tray of Twinkies closer to him across his work station with one clawed hand.

The other major question that had lingered in his mind regarding Gambit's mutation had been the muted, but still oft posed, question of Gambit having latent psi-potential. He clearly had some odd talent for evading psi-probes and his rumoured 'charm' posed questions about the nature of his powers to anyone with even a passing interest in mutation.

Hank had never been sure that Gambit's 'charm' actually stretched beyond a certain flare with the opposite sex and into the realms of true psi-power, but Ororo swore he had a gift close to hypnotist when he wished to exploit it. Unsurprisingly Gambit only chose to exploit said gift when Hank was not around to observe it.

Hank blew out a breath of frustration and eyed the tray of Twinkies wistfully.

Still there was enough speculative data and incidences of unusual prescience on Gambits part that had been observed and verified by witnesses to create a valid area for further research. Hank pondered this as he extricated a Twinkie from the tray and swallowed it whole.

Telepaths and even telekinetics were perhaps the closest mutant kind had to a genuine species sub-set; their numbers were almost large enough per mutant head of population after all, and even with a sample group as small as the wider X-sphere, psi's represented a large percentage of the alpha level mutants who followed the Dream.

However among psi's there were common traits; Gambit did not fit any of those. The question that had always faced Hank therefore was why, and how, could Gambit have, essentially, two entirely disparate powers? It did not make sense.

Mutants with more than one manifestation of their power, such as Jean, still had a single core mutation. Jean was a psi; that her power manifested as both telepathy and telekinesis was simply evidence of her advanced state of psionic potential, not two separate powers.

Gambit, in contrast, had what was basically a physically, not psychically, orientated power. His mutation had more in common with Cyclops than it did Jean's…….or was that where the falsehood came into play?

Hank blinked as his brain itched; he swallowed another Twinkie whole. His brain needed sustenance if he was to piece together the puzzle that was Gambit.

'Cerebro, please show me the most recent brainscan for mutant designate: Phoenix.' Hank requested around another mouthful of Twinkie.

'Brainscan dated 13th February 2008 for mutant designate Phoenix uploading to terminal screen beta ten.' Cerebro intoned chirpily.

Hank stared at the image that appeared on his screen. Jean had extra lobes of the brain that dealt primarily with her telekinesis; lobes that Charles, Betsy and Emma Frost did not possess but Cable and Rachel did. Those lobes were located at the base of the skull and Jean's neurological bandwidths operated in quite a different way to that of Charles or other 'pure' telepaths.

Lifting the transparent printout of Gambit's brainscan up to the screen Hank placed that scan over the image of Jean's brain. He lined them up as best he could. What he saw still surprised him even though it confirmed what he had begun to suspect from the moment Jean stated that Gambit may have suffered some form of genetic alteration or experimentation at Mr Sinister's hands.

'Stars and Garters,' he whispered.

The two images, the one on the screen and the one in his hands, matched with almost uncanny accuracy. The only difference was that Gambit's brain lacked the extra lobes, and of course there was the scar tissue at the base of his skull.

That faint, almost excessively neat, cross hatch of surgical scars so precisely bisected the point where the lobes were in Jean's scan that it was simply incomprehensible to Hank that what he was seeing could be anything other than proof that at some point Gambit had possessed the same brain formation as Jean – a formation almost identical to that of an omega level telekinetic.

'Gracious me, Gambit my mysterious friend, what did Sinister do to you…..and, more pertinently, how on Earth am I to rectify it?'

Hank tapped the fingers of one furred hand against his desk as he held his spectacles by one ear piece and chewed on the other between his lips. After a moment he removed the spectacles and popped another Twinkie into his mouth. He chewed meditatively for a long moment of thought.

'Cerebro – call up all archived medical records for Remy Lebeau: mutant designate Gambit.' He swallowed his mouthful.

'Medical records for mutant designate: Gambit uploading now, terminal screen beta nine.'

Hank watched the files he himself had created appear before him with new insight. Now that he knew that what he was looking at, in Gambit's physical exams, was the product of an extensive scientific alteration of a natural mutation he could begin to deconstruct, at least on a theoretical level, what Sinister had done to create the enigmatic mutant the X-men knew as Remy Lebeau.

'My, my,' Hank murmured caught between disgust and awe as he began to recognise exactly what it was he was seeing. 'Let us hope for your sake, my erstwhile Acadian compeer, that science truly can set one free,' he murmured to the absent Cajun as he hunkered down to begin his own search for the truth.

Hank was certain that truth was hidden within the very workings of the other man's body. Sinister had made of Gambit a Frankenstein's monster – and it was well known how that particular story came to its unhappy end. Hank found himself wondering vaguely, as he reached for the last Twinkie, just how long he had before the flaming torches and the angry mob mobilised.

* * *

Threnody shivered. The plastic chair in the sterile corridor was uncomfortable and the hard plastic dug into her thighs as she rocked back and forth, her arms wrapped around herself.

So much death, so much pain and struggle; she did not think she could contain it all for long.

She looked up sharply as a group of doctors in white coats ran by with a gurney. She followed the snaking trail of death with her eyes as the group disappeared through the swishing, swinging doors. Tears pricked her eyes; she did not want to lose control but could not bring herself to leave the hospital Sinister had abandoned her in.

So much death all around her and she could feel the power building inside.

'Look mommy – look at the lady's eyes glowing!'

Threnody jerked around at the sound of the little boy voice. She stared at the child no more than five or six with the plaster cast on his arm and the lolly-pop. She saw the child through a haze of power; he was thin and insubstantial and her power did not recognise the life and vitality in his small, fragile frame.

He was far too alive for her; her power only sought pain and death.

The boy's mother screamed when she saw Threnody but Threnody was used to screaming. She heard the dying screaming in her mind every minute of every day. It was nothing to her if people screamed.

She watched as the woman picked up her child and started running down the white corridor yelling about mutants with flaming eyes. Threnody did not really hear her, however as somewhere else in the hospital oncology ward a little girl lay dying in the late stages of Leukaemia with her family gathered around.

The child's imminent death called to Threnody just like the man in the operating room with his rib cage surgically torn open so the doctors could pick bullets from his innards.

The old lady dying of cervical cancer was a soft hum of peaceful inevitability compared to the raging tempest of pain and rage that the young woman with final stage breast cancer next to her produced; her fury at the injustice of her death was like a festival of fireworks.

Threnody dropped onto her hands and knees on the floor in the hospital corridor as the chair she had been sitting on collapsed into ashes. She did not want to lose control but there was so much pain and death here. It was too much for her to contain; far, far, too much.

Threnody reached for the circular red and black badge emblazoned with a big 'X' that Sinister had given her when he had left her here in this horrible, marvellous, citadel of death and pain.

She pressed the button she could just feel under her thumb in the very centre of the 'X'.

'Please Doctor McCoy; please help me,' she whispered like a prayer.

All around Threnody people continued to die and bleed and fade away. The power of their death seeped into her like the wails of ghosts in hell. She held her breath and prayed; she could not hold on for long and then, when she could hold on no longer, she and every soul in this hospital would die.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Eleven: Apprehension**

'Move people, move!'

Cyclops hollered as he herded Phoenix, Rogue, Beast and Iceman into the Blackbird. Cerebro was still processing the mutant threat that had tripped the alarms and uploading the information into the Blackbird's onboard computers.

'Christ, Threnody – that's a blast from the past; right Hankster?'

Iceman asked his friend as Cyclops strode forward to take the controls of the 'bird. It had taken exactly thirteen minutes from the first emergency missive on the X-men comm. transmission frequency to the point that they were in the air; not bad but could be better.

'Robert I do not think that now is the time to be discussing such trivialities.' Beast said in subdued voice and it wasn't just Iceman who looked at him in surprise. The cabin of the Blackbird fell into an uneasy silence.

'Cyclops, Cerebro has confirmed the mutant signature inside the Saint Luke's hospital is Threnody; it looks like the distress call was real.'

'Understood Phoenix; as we approach see if you can make telepathic contact with her. We need to know what she's doing in the hospital.'

…_..And whether Sinister has anything to do with it,_ he added for his wife's benefit only.

_On it hon. _Reassurance pulsed through the psychic rapport they shared; Jean's way of letting him know she understood his concerns and still thought he was doing a good job of holding everything together. It meant the world to him, even if he did think she was wrong to have such faith in him.

The rest of the X-men didn't need to know about his fears that Threnody suddenly going berserk in a public hospital wasn't a coincidence. The whole thing had Sinister written all over it; first Gambit bolts then Scott finds out the man was one of Sinister's former experiments and now, all of a sudden, a mutant they knew worked for Sinister runs amok. Yes, the whole thing screamed distraction but there was not a damn thing Scott could do. They had to act if Threnody was really out of control.

Just as the silence was beginning to grow oppressive once again Rogue rather pointedly cleared her throat and spoke up from her seat in the cabin, 'Cyke; what's the plan?'

It was only as she spoke that he realised he hadn't even the vaguest idea what to do beyond the most basic response to the crisis, which was stopping Threnody from blowing a hospital full of people to kingdom come. He almost laughed; Christ Charles would be so disappointed in them all.

'Simple Rogue; find Threnody and subdue her. If she really needs help we have a duty to provide it, if it's ruse on Sinister's part we deal with it when the man shows up.'

'You think Mr Sinister is attempting to use Threnody as a lure?' Beast asked and the plainness of his language demonstrated just how conflicted he was feeling.

The cold hard truth was that it was Hank's fault Threnody had ended up in Sinister's hands after all. To this day Scott still couldn't figure out how his friend could have allowed that to happen, let alone _agreed_ to hand the deranged girl over to that mad man.

'I think we can't ignore the possibility.' Scott said grimly.

He couldn't see Hank sitting behind him but he imagined the man nodded his head in silent acceptance and Scott could literally feel the weight of guilt and worry in his old friend's clear blue eyes burning into his back. Hank had made an error of judgement brought on by desperation and apathy, but Scott couldn't quite let him off the hook. Hank, almost more than any of them, should have known better.

'Threnody could not control her necromantic energy powers the first time we encountered her; she was drawn to the place where a victim of the Legacy virus had recently died. She is as much a victim as any in that hospital, Cyclops.' A thread of audible self-reproach laced Hank's words.

'Maybe Beast, but that doesn't stop her from being dangerous. If she's escaped Sinister and needs our protection then that's fine, but it isn't like Sinister is above using mutant's in need to try and harm others.' Cyclops pointed out with ruthless honesty.

Sinister was the closest thing to a devil incarnate Scott had ever known; no one who encountered the century old mad scientist could come away from the association untainted. Knowing this Scott couldn't help turning his thoughts back to the missing Gambit. The Cajun was a long way from pure on his best days; Scott found he did not want to imagine what corruption he'd gained from Sinister.

Hank had nothing to say to argue the point and fell into silence; the Blackbird continued to sweep through the clouds towards the city of New York.

'Are ya sure we should take her back ta the mansion, Cyke?' Rogue spoke up again.

'What do you mean, Rogue? If she needs help, of course we should help her.' Iceman answered before Scott could draw breath.

'I mean that's what X-men do, right?' There was a pause and Scott could almost hear Iceman choosing his words, 'No offence Hank but we should never have let Sinny take Threnody in the first place. Jeez, I don't even want to think what that bastard's been doing to her.'

'That's enough Iceman,' Scott turned slightly in the cockpit and caught the worried look Jean gave him.

They might all be thinking exactly what Bobby had said but there was a time and place for this sort of speculation and now wasn't the time. Also, although Hank had been wrong to give Threnody to Sinister it was one mistake in a life time of good deeds and compassionate acts. Hank did not disturb to have salt constantly rubbed into the wound, especially not when it wouldn't change anything.

Hank was silent in response to his best friend's criticism but Scott could just imagine what effect Bobby's words had on him; Hank would take them to heart and let them fester, running himself ragged trying to fix any damage that he perceived as his fault.

Ordinarily Scott admired that dedication to others, but right now he couldn't afford any member of this team getting distracted from the immediate concerns. The very last thing Scott needed was a team going into a very volatile situation with their heads all over the place. The team needed to be focused and cohesive….or failing that they needed to at the very least avoid being total basket-cases.

_Don't ask for much, do you honey? _Jean's thoughts brushed against him like warm, gentle fingers.

_What can I say Redd; I live on hope alone. So tell me, how's Hank really holding up?_

_Not great but he's more worried about Threnody than himself; it's Rogue that's bothering me. Her thoughts are locked up tight; she's not usually that good at shielding and it makes me wonder what it is she's _really_ hiding._

Scott gave the equivalent of a mental shrug, _I know, any other time I'd be applauding how calm and focussed she is, but under these circumstances I just keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. I mean I know she and Remy were on the outs but still, you'd think his leaving would have some impact on her._

_She still loves him Scott; that's what is really troubling me. She's been fighting against what she absorbed from his mind for months and I've hated not being able to help her, or even admit that I know something about it, but now….well, it's like a pure wall of steel has slammed into place and she's as much a psychic ghost as Remy usually is. _

_That is not good. _The thought formed before Scott could help himself and he winced at the inadequacy of the statement.

He felt Jean's wry amusement through the link, _Scott Summers master of the understatement. _Scott almost smiled as he felt the affection and love that accompanied the gentle teasing_….Oh! Scott I've got her; I've got a lock on Threnody's thoughts…..oh, the poor girl, she's in so much pain. _

_Try and make contact and calm her down, Jean. We should be in the city in minutes._

He instructed his wife trying to pass on his own reassurances through their link. He never doubted Jean's power and ability but he knew that the effect of touching other minds in combat, especially when those minds were often frightened, distressed or rage filled took its tool on Jean.

'Alright people; Jean has contacted Threnody and our ETA is two minutes. Once we're over the hospital I want the four of you to get down there and find Threnody while I find a place to park the 'Bird.'

_Your wish is my command honey, _Jean gave the equivalent of a mental eye roll but he knew she was teasing him.

'Yeah not like I have anything better to do on a Sunday night,' Iceman mock whined, 'My life so royally sucks.' He added under his breath.

'Gotcha sugar,' Rogue sounded calm and confident.

'Agreed fearless, the sooner the better.' Hank in contrast sounded pre-occupied and worried.

Scott didn't like that contrast one bit or how out of character both Rogue and Hank's reactions were.

Somehow, in the strangest way, Scott couldn't help blaming Gambit for everything that seemed to be going wrong right now. He was sure that eventually everything happening now would lead back to the mystery surrounding the damned Cajun.

* * *

Many miles away from the Blackbird and New York City, in an abandoned lot in a non-descript town in Virginia a less than happy reunion was taking place; a reunion of some very dangerous people.

'Well long time no see Malice, or is it Polaris?'

The woman once known as Phillippa Sontag and now known with various degrees of dread as Arclight folded her muscle corded arms under her amble bosom; her silvery white uniform glowed in the dingy dusk and poor lighting shining into the lot. Behind her back Vertigo stared vacantly up at the broken multi-pane window of the old shoe factory that once commanded this lot and at her side Scrambler played with his new PDA.

'Arclight sweetie, you're looking more butch than usual, have you been working out?'

Facing the three Marauders the green haired woman worked hard to betray neither fear nor anxiety as beside her the large, ferocious blonde man in the animalistic costume crouched and flexed his claws, scenting the air for the location of the rest of Sinister's lackeys.

Arclight rolled her eyes; witty repartee was not her forte. She preferred to let her fists do her talking for her. 'Give it a rest Dane; we know you're faking it.' Arclight smirked, 'The boss killed Malice remember? You were there in Honolulu. We know that choker is a fake.'

Lorna Dane smiled but it was a little strained, 'And when has _dying_ ever stopped any of us?' She demanded in bored tones as she threw up one hand and smashed a wave of electromagnetic energy into the three Marauders.

The pulse hit Arclight head on, knocking her into the gormless Vertigo. Scrambler's PDA exploded and he looked up in fury whipping out a handgun from his hip holster with staggering speed.

'Hey bitch, that wasn't cheap! I'm taking the costs out of your hide.'

Lorna rolled her eyes and rose into the air. She caught hold of the metal gun still clutched in Scrambler's hands and flung both gun and gunman twenty feet across the lot. She turned back to Creed.

'Is it just me or do the Marauders actually seem to be getting dumber?'

Creed shrugged indifferently, 'They're clones. Puppets don't need to think, they just _do_.'

As if to illustrate this point Arclight slammed one fist into the ground sending a sonic pulse ripping over the cracked concrete towards the two; at the same time Riptide spun into the fray, from where he had been hiding behind the factory outhouses, in a rain of lethal shuriken ejected from his own body. Lorna was forced to take to higher altitude to avoid the maelstrom as the shuriken were not metallic and she could not fully stop them.

Sabretooth did not bother to avoid the barrage of spikes and instead ran headlong towards the whirling dervish that was Riptide. Shuriken flayed his flesh from his skin down to the muscle but Sabretooth did not so much as slow down; he collided with Riptide in a cloud of shuriken fragments and blood.

Vertigo decided to come and play then as Riptide began to scream and Sabretooth's claws closed on fistfuls of internal organs. A wave of nausea afflicted Polaris and Creed. Polaris shook it off and concentrated on affecting the iron in Arclight and Scrambler's bloodstream; cutting off the flow of oxygen to their brains.

Creed was not so lucky; a creature of his senses he reeled away from the twitching, bloody remains of Riptide, clutching his head. It was then that Harpoon launched one of his charged namesakes straight at Sabretooth's back. The lance struck deep and released its electrical charge through Creed's body.

Sabretooth snarled a scream as he collapsed; Vertigo dived forward brandishing a six inch blade pulled from her belt. Smiling like a child on Christmas morning she straddled Creed as he pulled the foot long spear from his back. The blade of Vertigo's knife entered his neck on the right side and the tip of the blade exited on the left.

A spout of blood erupted into the air; the metallic stench filled the lot.

Arclight pounded the ground once more even as her vision began to grey out and her knees buckled. As her fist connected with the weed choked concrete another sonic pulse ripped across the lot. Shards of filthy glass fell from broken windows and pelted the ground as Sabretooth and Vertigo ended up bouncing across the ground.

This did not deter Vertigo in the slightest; blood fountained from a dozen strategic anatomical points on Creed's body as her knife rose and fell; flashing a dull liquid black in the pale light of a yellowed moon. Unable to tell up from down and left from right Sabretooth struggled to fight off the Marauder.

Scrambler managed to fire off a round from his gun; the barrel might be metal but the bullets were not. The plasma rounds seared through the air in orange sulphur streaks. Polaris deflected five of the seven shots but the last two passed through her magnetic shield. Although her powers deflected the brunt of the impact she was still knocked from the sky.

Arclight was waiting for her when she landed. The sonic punch took out the wall of the factory store house and Lorna Dane barely managed to erect a shield around herself as bricks and mortar rained down on her head. Arclight struck again and once more Lorna deflected the direct blow with her magnetic shield.

Unfortunately that left her back woefully unprotected.

Behind Lorna Scrambler loaded another plasma round into the chamber of his gun. He aimed and fired without hesitation. Polaris screamed as the rounds pounded into her shield at her back, where it was weakest. Arclight closed in, knocking down the rest of the outer wall of the warehouse with a well placed fist.

Polaris evaded the joint attack but was left dazed and reeling; like jackals scenting easy meat the two Marauders closed ranks upon her. Lorna tried to take to the skies but was not fast enough.

Prism sidled forward from where he had been hidden in the shadows and stood directly in front of Lorna; the dirty moonlight refracted through his crystal body shattered into a thousand piercing spears of blinding light. Lorna threw up a hand to shield her eyes instinctively and Scrambler lunged forward grabbing her from behind as her shield faltered.

Lorna screamed as he scrambled her mind and powers both.

* * *

The hospital was in uproar as the four X-men pushed their way in through the emergency room doors. An evacuation was already underway but it was anything but calm and orderly.

Screams of 'mutant', 'monster' and even the occasional 'abomination' seemed to take a life of their own growing louder in a cacophonous echo, as people shoved and pushed and knocked one another over in a desperate attempt to flee the mutant girl standing in the waiting room area surrounded by a wild corona of yellowish black energy that looked for all the world like a malignant sun.

_Beast go to Threnody and try to keep her calm, _Jean's mental transmission reached through all their thoughts, _I'm going to try and keep the crowd calm and do some damage control with the hospital administration. Rogue, Bobby, help with the evacuation._

'Oh jeez,' Iceman breathed out between his teeth. 'Give me the hard job, why don't you Jeannie,' he muttered mulishly.

Bobby scanned the thinning crowds in the main reception and waiting room area and went to help an old lady with a walking frame that stood across the waiting room from the panicked crowds and Threnody. The woman had a bleeding gash on her wrinkled forehead and it looked like she'd been trampled by the rampaging crowds before being spat out right into the line of fire.

'Here ma'am let me….' He reached out for the woman, intending to take her elbow and guide her towards the exit. He was caught completely by surprise when the old lady's gnarled and arthritis twisted hand lashed out and her nails left shallow, bleeding runnels through the flesh on the back of his own hand.

'Ow!...Hey lady I'm here to help!'

'Freak!' the gob of spit that hit him with unerring accuracy in the right eye startled Bobby Drake enough that he backed off. The old woman raised her voice again and started screaming in a quavering voice, 'Freaks…..all freaks…..mutie freaks……kill them, kill them!'

A few stragglers in the crowd that still hadn't managed to vacate the area turned then. A large man with multiple jailhouse tattoos picked up one of the plastic waiting room chairs and took a deliberately menacing step forward. Two other men equally large and mean looking fell into step behind the first.

'Oh double jeez.'

Iceman iced up stepping away from the hysterical old biddy so he could deal with the trio of tough guys with mutie bashing on the brain. He hoped that his ice form would deter them but the brutal truth was that Bobby Drake just wasn't that intimidating no matter what form he took.

'Look guys I'm just trying to help….'

The tattooed guy launched the chair at him but before Bobby could freeze it at the end of a column of solid ice like some bizarre ice sculpture Rogue was just suddenly there. She caught the chair mid-flight and had pitched it back at the group of toughs almost too fast for Bobby to register her actions.

'Y'all want to play catch, do ya?'

The chair smashed into the leading touch guy, the one with the tattoos, right to his mid-rift. The man crumpled in obvious pain to the floor as his two buddies took a big step back. Rogue set her two feet down on the ground and rested one hand on her hip. There was a large grin on her face.

'Ooops was that too hard sugar? Did lil' ole me hurt ya?'

The two remaining toughs looked from Rogue to Iceman and back again. Then they looked down at their fallen friend lying on the ground and moaning. They looked to one another finally and came to a decision. Under unanimous unspoken accord they both turned tail and ran leaving their friend and the screaming old lady behind.

'Oh so ya want ta play hide and seek now?' Rogue called after them almost crowing with triumph, 'Alrighty then, ah reckon ah can oblige ya some. Y'all better run fast though cause ah ain't in the mood for games.'

Bobby stared at his friend genuinely shocked. He hadn't heard Rogue sound so blasé and downright pleased to have hurt someone in a very long time.

'Rogue you could have killed him.'

Rogue just smirked at him, shaking her hair from her eyes, 'Coulda but didn't,' she shrugged indifferently, 'Must be losing mah touch or something.'

'Rogue……' Bobby stared; it might just be a trick of the light but he could have sworn Rogue's eyes looked violet and there was the faintest shadow of a mark over her right eye. It occurred to him suddenly that she sounded like Gambit at his most arrogant and callous. 'Rogue what's going on with you?'

Rogue shrugged casually, 'Not a lot sugar,' she eyed him defiantly, 'Shall we go deal with Threnody now Bobby or do ya want ta interrogate me some more?'

Without waiting for a reply Rogue strode through the now empty (except for the cantankerous old biddy) waiting room towards where Hank was talking to the cowering Threnody. Bobby stared after her open mouthed.

'Okay, it's official; the whole world's gone freaking nuts.' Bobby shook his head ruefully and followed at Rogue's heels, 'I blame Gambit…..it's all gotta be Gambit's fault somehow – that's the only answer.'

* * *

Victor Creed watched the blood slicked blade as it sliced through the air towards him through a haze of nauseating dizziness, his lips curling in a growl. He wasn't having fun right now and he decided to do something about it; starting with the ditzy bitch on top of him.

The knife came down, aimed for his ribs. Creed didn't do a thing to stop the knife sinking between his lower ribs and pushing through muscle and organ like the proverbial hot knife through butter. The pain was immediate as a papercut and just as fleeting. Sabretooth grinned up at Vertigo as she tried to pull the blade out of his body again only to find his large hand clamped around her wrist.

'My turn now girlie,' he growled as he snapped her wrist and watched the pain reverberate through her body to her wide eyes. Creed savoured that pain and shock for a moment; it was the best part of hurting people after all. Then he smashed his fist into Vertigo's face. He felt it when the delicate bones broke. She fell backwards with Creed's claws headed for her throat.

'Say yer prayers frail….yer going back to the clonin' tanks.'

Vertigo stared up at him from a ruined face as creed's body weight pressed down on her chest making it impossible to breathe. Creed raised a hand tipped with blood soaked claws and flexed his fingers for effect; spatters of blood sprinkled like a light rain from those claws. Vertigo closed her eyes and prepared herself yet again for death.

Creed brought the claws arcing downwards.

Lorna Dane screamed again as Scramblers powers robbed her of all control. A coruscating, metal grinding flare of power tore from her body. Scrambler was blasted backwards, already dead of an instant stroke. Arclight was thrown into the remaining fragments of the factory wall hard enough to pulverise every bone in her body – of course she was already dead by the time she hit the wall, so it didn't matter so much.

Prism felt the energy rattle through his body and had just enough time to wonder how Dane had managed to shatter his crystal form before he collapsed in a shower of glittering shards across the broken concrete.

Creed was hit by the pulse wave on its periphery edge as it spread like the back-draft of a mushroom cloud outward; it hurt but he was healing from so many potentially fatal wounds already that he didn't particularly notice. Vertigo might have noticed but she was dead already; her body opened up like a peeled lime.

Lorna's pulse wave moved on rocking through the derelict buildings surrounding the old lot and causing electrical faults and machinery failure in appliances within a full two mile radius before it finally ran out of steam.

Harpoon had already decided that the fight wasn't worth fighting and was half a mile down the road when he turned back to see the pulse of green light, akin to a flare of the aurora borealis, tear through the sky. He frowned and summoned a tesseract.

The boss would not be pleased with this one little bit.

Polaris collapsed unconscious; Creed picked himself up once he was sure he could walk and Dane wasn't going to flare up again. He grinned, flexing his claws in anticipation. The scent of blood and death hung on the dusk air like a hellish smog.

Creed approached the unconscious woman warily; he sniffed the air tentatively. Yep, Dane was out cold. He grinned; he could have some fun now. Vertigo and Riptide hadn't been challenge enough for Victor Creed and he owed Dane for that pounding she'd delivered on him while pretending to be Malice back at the Falls Edge complex.

Creed hunkered down beside Lorna's prone form and twitched his blood dripping claws once more. Decisions, decisions; should he have his fun now, or play along with Dane and put off the blood lust a little longer?

What would be the bigger payoff?

'Ah to hell with it…' Creed grinned and reached a claw tipped hand down towards the insensate Polaris' throat.

* * *

'Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease…..'

Threnody was just saying that one word over and over again as she clung to Beast's legs and sobbed. The one breathless exclamation didn't even sound like a word any longer; just a sound. Rogue gritted her teeth and resisted the desire to reach out and slap the hysterical girl.

'Threnody, the X-men are here to assist you, but you must tell us how you came to be here.' Beast was saying and it sounded like he'd said the words a number of times already without any success.

Threnody was still crackling with energy but at the moment at least she was holding it in. The girl's head snapped up and she stared up at Beast with glowing golden eyes.

'He said I must s….serve my p…purpose…..he…..he has released me……the Marauders will reassemble…..I am not part of the garden……I am nothing to him.'

Threnody stammered and shuddered momentarily and the halo of power circling her body darkened from tiger eye yellow to angry burnt orange.

'Oh I don't like the look of that,' Iceman murmured at Rogue's side. Almost absently Rogue sidled away from the perpetual biting chill that rose from Bobby's ice form. She shrugged her shoulders in response; this was Beast's show really though she did wonder what was taking Jean and Cyke so long to get back here.

'Who has released you….do you mean Mr Sinister; did he place you here?'

Beast crouched down beside Threnody heedless of the personal danger he faced being so close to a dangerously volatile mutant with power enough to vaporise him in an eyeblink. His voice was a soothing grumbling purr as he clasped Threnody's hands in his large paws.

'Threnody the X-men will take you with us, if you wish it, but you must assist our understanding…..you once refused an offer to come to the mansion and chose to stay with Sinister; what has changed?'

Threnody palmed her own face in her hands and rocked, 'I can still hear them……even in this empty place…..so many dying, screaming, moaning, crying……all so loud, so loud and I can't think…they won't let me think!'

Threnody screamed and reared up to her feet like a marionette jerked on her strings. She capered drunkenly on the spot as if a deranged puppeteer had control of her and staggered away from the three X-men.

'I can't stop it!' she howled and threw up a hand in a loose gesture.

Her power loosed from her control and smashed into the back wall of the waiting room. A hole large enough to drive a SUV through appeared in the wall. There was a lot of dust but no rubble; she had simply vaporised the wall with her power.

'Beast we need ta _do_ something before she totals the whole hospital!'

Rogue rose to hover in the air, giving her more manoeuvrability if Threnody snapped. Beast nodded and took a step towards the girl.

'Threnody…'

'No!'

She wheeled around and flares of black gold power that stretched out of from her body like forks of lightning crawled over the ceiling blowing out the lights in tiny explosions.

'No you don't understand! You don't know about the garden; you don't know what he'll do! It's all happening…. And I know! Don't you see? I know; he thought I was asleep, he thought I could not understand but I do…..I do know…..'

'Know what? Threnody we don't understand what you're talking about.'

Bobby coated the waiting room ceiling with ice that began to seep down the walls as well; forming a blanket of sheet ice insulation for the entire room.

'The Cajun knows…..he knows……he's the reason for the garden! Ask him, ask my predecessor……..the Cajun knows!' Threnody screeched the words, living up to her name as she howled like a banshee in her distress.

'The Cajun knows! My predecessor ran….he got away…..but no one escapes Sinister.' Threnody sobbed hysterically, 'He knows about the bloody harvest….just as I do….._he was there_…..he saw what Sinister does to those who pollute the garden!'

Rogue sucked in a sharp breath; her blood running cold and the distant echoes of ruptured meat and screams rattling like a gale in her mind. She saw the effect of Threnody's ranting on both Beast and Iceman and her heart clenched in fear.

'The Cajun?' Bobby looked from Rogue to Threnody, 'You mean Gambit?'

At the same time Beast said, 'Your predecessor?'

'Yesssssssssss!' Threnody was literally hissing like a tea kettle with power and energy.

Threnody's fingers of death energy were already burning away at Bobby's ice shielding and filling the room with damp steam and dripping water where the ice had evaporated. With fear throbbing on the tip of her tongue and her pulse thundering in her head Rogue knew what she had to do.

'Stop it – ya just don't say another word girl!'

Rogue tore off her glove as Threnody turned to her, fingers of power writing around her body and eyes wild. Threnody opened her mouth to speak and Rogue acted on desperate impulse.

She had to stop the other woman; she had to make sure Threnody couldn't tell any more secrets that weren't hers to tell. That was all Rogue was really thinking as she dive bombed through the air towards Threnody – bare hand outstretched.

'Rogue – _no_!'

She heard the cry, though she did not recognise who spoke and she did not really care anyway.

The solid column of yellow black energy smashed into Rogue a second later as she flew head on towards Threnody……but then Rogue wasn't invulnerable for nothing. She reached for the other woman through the searing ice heat of the death pulse even as that power melted patches of her uniform from her body and singed her hair.

Some secrets must stay hidden; Rogue thought as her naked hand closed around Threnody's fragile neck and her own mutant power connected as they both smashed through the hole in the outer wall of the hospital waiting room. Remy's secrets had to stay hidden; Rogue could not allow the X-men to find out _ever_. Even if that meant she had to take out every single person who knew to make sure of it, she would do it.

'Ah'm sorry sugar, but ah hafta protect him.' She whispered as she dropped the unconscious girl to the ground in the back alley outside the hospital.

She could already feel the voices of the dying roaring into her head like a morbid tide. Threnody's hideous power pulsed inside Rogue as she took off for the skies; energy sparking off her like the tail of a reverse comet.

Rogue had broken the promise she had once made to herself and the professor when she had sought Xavier's help all those years ago; she had used her powers on an innocent person – deliberately. Despite this she could not regret what she had done.

She had to protect Remy.

There were some things that were unforgivable and X-men weren't always that good at forgiveness anyhow; at least not when it came to members of the team that weren't Xavier's precious golden children. The sainted original five, Logan, and Storm, could get away with murder and be forgiven; Rogue had seen it happen. She also knew just as well that it didn't work out that way for the rest of them - and it sure wouldn't work that way for Remy.

After all, if she couldn't forgive him, a former member of the brotherhood of evil mutants, how could she expect _Golden Boy_ Cyclops and _the oh so perfect_ Jean Grey to forgive Remy? No, she had to make sure they never found out – it was the only way to keep him in her life.

As Rogue reached a high enough altitude to release the energy she had stolen from Threnody into the air without causing damage, she repeated to herself over and over that she had to make sure that the X-men never found out about the Marauders and the massacre. If they did they'd never forgive Remy; they'd force him out of the mansion, worse still, some of them might even try and hurt him. Faced with the prospect of a life that didn't contain Remy in any way, shape, or form Rogue did what she had to do.

The Manhattan skyline was illuminated in a screaming pulse of orange-gold light that momentarily turned night to day as Rogue released all the power she had drawn from Threnody out into the world. Like the heart of an evil sun Rogue curled up inside that aching sphere of death and pain and swallowed the horror that was Threnody's memories in their entirety.

She had to make sure Remy's secrets stayed hidden…..that way she could still hope for her own happily ever after.


	13. Chapter 13

_A/N: Welcome padnat…..and Gator Bait, in regards your last review, you are so very right. Disturbed doesn't quite cover it….but then what X-man isn't nuttier than a fruit cake? ;)_

_Anyway everyone can relax…..Gambit has returned!_

**Chapter Twelve: Recollection Pt Two**

**Arizona: 2009 March 24****th**** - five miles outside of a town called Millstone **

It was raining and that didn't seem fair to Remy Lebeau. Deserts should be hot, and dry as a bone; it should not rain at all. Pulling over on the side of the wide open highway to nowhere Remy kicked the kick stand down and dismounted his bike. He was tired and he ached all over.

Twenty-four hours straight in the 'saddle' and he was punch drunk and starting to feel real fuzzy. It was either pull over for a breather or end up totalling himself by driving into the back of a truck.

He flipped the collar of his trench up and huddled inside it; mon dieu was that thunder? A searing flash of retina scaring light ripped across the dark and angry sky; lightning.

'Great, jus' great,' he paced in a tight circle at the side of the road, kicking rusty cans out of the way.

The dry, hard packed dirt and dust covering the salt flats and rocks of the desert was fast becoming a thin stream of pungent mud. He shaded his eyes instinctively when another brilliant strobe of lightning rippled over the sky.

'You jus' can' give a boy a break, can you?' he glanced up at the sky and narrowed his eyes at the god he could not see but never doubted existed. Even if God did seem to exist mostly just to spite him.

The rain continued to fall into his face and the sky continued to crash and shudder with one mother of a building storm. Vaguely Remy thought of his Stormy but then deliberately killed off the thought. He was trying for a guilt free day today.

'Ha – chance will be a fine thing; guilt be about de only t'ing I ever been good at.'

There was a stand of tall cacti about fifty feet away from the roadside and Remy actually took a few steps towards them before he realised how stupid that was. He might as well go find him a big old piece of sheet metal and climb one of those big rocks shouting at the top of his lungs 'come on and strike me dead God' into the storm.

'It's official boy; you got de worst luck in de world.'

The sensible thing to do would be to get back on his bike and continue on his way, hoping to ride out of the storm. Still the truth was he was bored of this cat and mouse game he and Grey Crow had been playing for the last thirty-whatever-hours since he'd left Westchester. He wanted to get this thing over with.

He was tired of this limbo existence; he was not Essex puppet and he never had been – it was time to start placing his bets and calling in his own markers. It was time to start playing for keeps.

He already had his first target lined up; all he was waiting for was for the homme to show.

'C'mon mon ami, don' leave me hangin' now.'

He shook his head as the pounding rain slicked his hair to his face; couldn't even smoke in this weather. Damn it why did everything have to be so difficult?

'I fuckin' hate de rain,' he told the empty air. Rain water had saturated his hair and was now streaking down his scalp and the back of his neck like ice fingers. He gritted his teeth and suppressed a shiver.

In the end, deliberately tempting fate (that was what he was best at after all) Remy took up a perch on one of the smooth topped and weathered old stones in the shadow of a larger boulder. True he might end up becoming the first mutant Cajun lightning conductor, but then again he didn't think fate would let him off so easy.

Eventually, after several failed attempts and a number of choice expletives, he even managed to get a cigarette to light without it growing impossibly soggy in the rain and puffed on it petulantly as he waited for Grey Crow to come find him.

Memories like some sepia tinged twisted slideshow danced behind his eyes; the rage he felt to know just how badly Essex had fucked with his head was a hot, sharp pain in his chest like constant heartburn.

Still that did not even compare to what he felt when it came to Grey Crow.

Mon dieu he'd thought it had hurt when Grey had betrayed him to Essex in Seattle after that mess in the theatre…..but to know the homme had been playing him for _years_ and he hadn't even remembered, non, that was the sort of thing to make a saint turn to murder…..and Remy Lebeau was no saint.

'What do you want from me?' he addressed himself to God and the Devil both; the twin forces that had shaped all his life to this point and usually for the worse.

No answers were forthcoming.

* * *

**New Orleans: 1992 April 14****th**

'Hey kid!'

Scalphunter raised his voice just enough to attract the attention of the skinny kid with the wild mop of brown hair prowling along the promenade after potential marks. The kid twisted on his heels, already falling into a defensive crouch. All that changed however as he recognised Scalphunter.

'Mister Reaper Man!'

Remy ambled over to him all loose limped energy and big open grin. Scalphunter noted the slightly newer sneakers and the slightly less filthy t-shirt and jeans and decided that the kid had obviously received a new collection of charity hand-me-downs from a church donation centre.

'Hey homme, you ain't been round for ages; where you been?'

Remy's cheerful greeting was in part motivated by the fistful of dollar bills Scalphunter had shoved into his grimy fist. He had found that if he simply handed over all his green to the boy first thing Remy would forego trying to steal his wallet…..or at least reconsider trying to steal his wallet.

Without a word Scalphunter started walking and Remy fell into step beside him beginning to ramble on in his usual incoherent, but benignly cheerful, chatter.

'So anyways homme, you done missed so much, non? Hettie, I done tol' you 'bout her oui? Anyhow she only gone got herself a sugar daddie, right? An' he only gone beat her around, so den, we gone an' got us a posse toget'er an' we gone ripped t'rough his house. Man he ain't got not'ing lef' t'call his own now 'cept a carpet square an' de wall sockets.'

The kid's snicker was nothing less than evil; Scalphunter smiled, 'Sounds fun, kid.'

'Ah shit, you got no idea, homme. We done had us a party after dat.' The boy beamed up at Scalphunter, 'So homme, you gon tell me what you wantin' dis time or what?' He mock glared, 'You gon prick me wit' your needles some more non?'

'Yeah some, that a problem for you?' Scalphunter asked though his voice made it clear that he would do it whether the brat cared or not.

The kid arranged his face into a perfect little boy pout, 'Dat gon cost you extra; my blood's on premium today.'

Scalphunter snorted, give this boy an inch and he'd charm a mile out of you, 'What do you want, a po-boy or an ice cream sandwich?'

'Bot',' Remy didn't miss a beat his smile becoming downright wicked, 'an' mebbe de bills you got in dat ot'er wallet you don want me to know about.' The kid had the gall to grin at him, 'Supply an' deman' homme; I got what you be wantin' so I figure you be payin', non?'

Scalphunter found the food court in the shopping arcade and bought the kid lunch, or dinner, or breakfast… hell maybe all three meals in one as the kid still looked under-nourished.

'You're going to be dead before your ten if you don't learn to watch that mouth, boy.'

Scalphunter warned him as he watched the fascinating sight of the skinny, runty kid demolishing huge amounts of food. Remy took time out of his food shovelling to flip him the bird and then continued to eat like food was going out of fashion.

Five minutes later when the boy was slowing down a little Scalphunter decided to start the interview. 'How's your little gal-pal?'

'Belle?' the boy looked up at him and his sunglasses had slipped so his eyes flashed over the rims. Scalphunter leaned forward to push them up the kid's nose for him; shit but this kid was really getting to him.

'You got any other girls stashed away I don't know about?' he asked amused.

The kid grinned real slyly, 'Mebbe,' he shrugged making a show of examining his dirty fingernails. Shit but this kid loved to play a role, 'de femmes like me; dey t'ink I'm cute.' He paused and frowned, 'Den dey go fussin' an' cluckin' over me like a buncha mother hens.'

Remy shook his head now looking mildly disgusted by the notion that he needed mothering; Scalphunter waited patiently for Remy to get around to answering the question.

'What you be askin' again? Oh yeah, Belle; she jus' bon. She gon have her a birt'day real soon. She gon be nine, an' she tell me dat I can share her birt'day wit' her.'

The boy looked up at him curiously, 'What you t'ink homme? I ain't never had me a birt'day; you t'ink dat be bon? Me an' Belle have us a birt'day toget'er?'

'Sure kid, don't put much stock in them myself, but at your age, you should have at least one.'

Remy smiled at him seemingly pleased with the endorsement, 'D'accord; I have one den. Belle says she gon let me open some o' her presents an' mebbe she snitch me some o' her cake. Not like I can go to her party, but she say she have more fun wit' me anyhow.'

The boy frowned darkly all of a sudden, 'Her brudder been doin' t'ings to her, de sorta t'ings dat de men down de alleys in the Quarter pay de femmes for; ain't right dat a brudder be doin' dat to his sister.' The kid's grip on his fork grew tighter in reflexive anger.

Scalphunter could well imagine what the boy meant but he just shrugged; the world was what it was after all, 'Happens all the time kid.'

Remy shook his head stubbornly, 'It wrong; it's still wrong.'

'Nothing you can do; it's not your problem.'

Scalphunter didn't want the boss' wild little pet getting himself killed trying to defend his little gal-pal's honour. He was surprised when the boy looked at him very seriously and earnestly.

'One day I will t'ough; one day I be de devil dat de monsters like Julien gon fear.' He told Scalphunter with utter conviction.

'One day I gon be de one deliverin' de beatin's on dem dat deserve it not de ot'er way 'round.' The red eyes burned into him over the slipping sunglasses, 'You'll see.'

Scalphunter wanted to laugh at the kid; he knew what his future was and it belonged to Essex, after all. Yet strangely staring into that young face and the eyes that had already seen more than most American nine years old had any business seeing he found that there was nothing funny about it. He nodded steadily.

'I think that would be really something kid; I'd pay to see it.' He said softly.

The kid smiled at him, 'You will homme; you will.'

* * *

**2009 – Arizona – on the roadside to nowhere**

Remy scrubbed his hands over his face irritably trying to banish the memories and winced when he brushed against the healing scratches Betsy had left him from their fight. His head ached from the brilliance of the lightning flashes and he was cold to his bones.

'I try to do good an' you won't let me escape my past. I been a villain but you made me care 'bout de folks I hurt.' He curled his lip in a sneer as he addressed his Gods. 'What makes me so special dat y'all make my life dis hell, hein? Why won't you jus' let me be?'

Unsurprisingly God and the Devil once again refrained from comment.

'Bastards,' Remy threw the butt of his cigarette away from him and watched it go pop in a shower of fuchsia sparks.

He really wished he could 'un'-remember everything Psylocke had poked loose when she tore up his head. Ignorance wasn't bliss, for sure, but it was still ignorance. Lord knew Remy had always seen the value of knowing little and saying less; there was a lot to be said for being dumb but sassy.

Hell if he could just catch a bout of amnesia Rogue might even take up with him again; she seemed to have a thing for bastards who had forgotten they were bastards after all.

'Dat connard _Joseph_,' Remy hissed apropos of nothing in particular except of course that he rather thought any opportunity spent cursing Joseph was time well spent. The rain and the storm were only adding to the somewhat irrational angry tempo of his thoughts as he continued to smoke one cigarette after another like a miniature human volcano – contained for the moment but set to blow like Krakatoa when the mood struck him.

He shook his head trying to clear it of the bitter, seething violence that twisted his thoughts. 'To hell wit' Joseph……to hell wit' Rogue too.'

Over head the sky continued to rend itself to pieces in swathes of scorching white and thunderous indigo; the mid-day storm as impressive as it was violent. It matched his mood perfectly.

He watched the gold fringed and bruised storm clouds roiling and boiling above for the longest time. The rain pelted down into the dehydrated soil and onto the hot rocks like a thousand needles and the scent of hot dust meeting rain curled through his brain.

The whole thing was ironically fitting for a good old fashioned showdown. He curled his lips in bitter amusement at the thought. He might have shitty luck and one helluva fucked up life but no one could deny he gave good melodrama.

Hell if his life was a soap opera he'd make a mint selling the rights to it.

'C'mon homme, we got us de perfect backdrop to our reunion an' everyt'ing.' He addressed the tardy Grey Crow. Lips pursing he watched an arc of lightning graze across the sky and blinked away the painful afterimages.

'I remembered what you tol' me, mon ami – here I am so where are you?' he whispered into the storm. It would be awhile before he received his answer.

* * *

**Baton Rouge - 1993 - October 7****th**

'Hey kid.'

The ten year old jerked his head up and blinked in surprise as Scalphunter sat down across from him at the table in the truckers' rest-stop just outside Baton Rouge. The boy looked clean for once; his hair was washed and his clothes were new and actually fitted him. Jean-Luc Lebeau had obviously wasted no time taking the kid in hand and sorting him out.

'Mister Reaper Man?'

Scalphunter smirked sourly; it wasn't a good thing, although it was hardly surprising, that the kid had bolted from his new 'home' already. He folded his arms across the Formica table and watched the kid.

'What you doin' here homme?' Remy squinted at him suspiciously.

'Looking for you boy; what do you think?'

Truth told Scalphunter had been waiting for the kid to bolt. He was only surprised it had taken Remy three weeks in the Lebeau residence before he'd tried to rip off old man Lebeau by stealing the silverware and hitchhiking north to the Louisiana capital. Remy was a stray and strays did not like being tamed. It was just luck on Scalphunter's part that he'd found the kid before Clan Lebeau had, or more likely, before the kid had his throat slit in the back of some psycho's cab out on the highway.

The boy was still watching him sharply, 'Did _he_ send you?' he demanded.

'Who?' Scalphunter asked falsely; he knew who the kid meant, just like he'd known that Remy would run from Jean-Luc Lebeau. The kid didn't understand kindness; he didn't know how to control it, and he sure as hell didn't trust it.

Remy's eyes were furious slits; the rest stop was nearly empty and the lights were dim so the boy wasn't wearing his sunglasses, 'You know who I'm talkin' 'bout.'

'Lebeau?'

'Yeah,' the kid shifted nervously in his chair and almost absently started to play with the cheap wristwatch he wore. Scalphunter reached out to take his wrist and examine the new addition to the kid's wardrobe; hell he hadn't known the boy even knew how to tell the time.

'Where'd you get the watch, kid?'

Remy wouldn't meet his eyes and jerked his wrist away curling his arms around his stomach defensively. He studied the cracked vinyl of the booth like his life depended on it.

'De homme's son, Henri, he done give it me.' The red eyes flashed up at Scalphunter and his face was a mask of apprehension, 'He caught me tryin' to lift dis ole' gold watch on dis chain from his things.'

'Yeah?' Scalphunter waited patiently for more but for once Remy wasn't talking. 'So what did Henri Lebeau do then?'

Remy blinked up at Scalphunter furtively, 'He tol' me dat de watch was special to him an' I couldn have it.'

Remy said softly words holding the confusion he must have felt when Henri Lebeau didn't beat him after catching him trying to steal his possessions. Remy continued to twist the watch around his wrist; the strap was loose because the kid was just so bony.

Scalphunter shook his head ruefully; the watch was trash, just some five dollar plastic thing, but it was probably the first time anyone had given Remy anything like it. No wonder the boy was freaking out; he'd had to fight and steal for his daily bread all his life and then, all of a sudden, all his dreams were coming true – the kid had be scared stupid.

Remy eventually started talking again, 'Henri tol' me to go to bed an' den, de next day, he gave me dis watch.' The red eyes sought Scalphunter's in utter bewilderment, 'He jus' gone an' gave it me, for keeps. Why'd he _do_ dat, homme?'

Scalphunter watched the kid for a long moment; he didn't say anything as the child tried to hide the tears prickling his eyes. Beatings, starvation, prostitution and sleeping rough didn't faze this boy, but kindness, hell even something as dumb as a cheap watch, had him running scared for miles.

'What did Lebeau say to you when he picked you up off the Rue Royale and took you back to his house?' he asked eventually when he thought the kid had his shit together.

The red eyes blinked at him before skittering away. It took Remy a long time before he could answer and when he did it was a whisper; as if he was afraid to speak the words he could not quite believe.

'He said dat he gon make me his son; like Henri be. He said dat he let me be a Lebeau an' we be kin.'

Angrily Remy shook his head, dark hair flying everywhere, 'Why? Why he do dat? I know who de homme be! Why de Guild leader gon take a devil cur like me int' his home if'n it ain't to hurt me some?'

The kid pounded the cracked table top with his fists, 'Ain't no way de Lebeaus gon have some street trash in dere house; it ain't natural.'

Scalphunter grabbed the kid's hands and slammed his palms flat against the table top; Remy was shouting and the few people in the rest stop were now staring. 'Calm down kid, before I smack you, got that?' Scalphunter growled a warning

Remy blinked at him and then cast a furtive look around him. When he saw their audience he hunched low in the booth and nodded, 'I…I'm okay now.'

'Good now listen to me,' Scalphunter demanded gruffly as he tried to think of the best way to get the kid to return to Lebeau and stay there.

Essex had decided that the best place for Remy was with the Guild leader and Scalphunter tended to agree; it was dumb fucking luck alone that the kid had survived on the streets this long, but luck only stretched so far.

'I'm listenin,' Remy told him honestly meeting his eyes dead on, 'You been my friend for years an' you ain't lead me wrong b'for; you tell me what to do, an' I gon do it.'

He smiled through the tears the kid would never admit to and looked up at Scalphunter with an expression of open trust that horrified the soulless mercenary to his empty core.

Scalphunter pushed the rare feeling of guilt and responsibility aside and focussed on what he had to do; if the boy was dumb enough to trust him that was not Scalphunter's problem.

'Go back to Lebeau kid; let the man make you his son if that's what he wants.'

Remy's eyes widened and he opened his mouth to speak; Scalphunter glared him into silence.

'You want to live on the streets all your life kid? You enjoy getting the shit beat out of you, huh?' Remy shook his head, but did not not dare to speak.

Scalphunter continued to glower at him as he pounded him with harsh questions, 'Don't you like getting three square meals a day and a warm bed to sleep in, kid? What's the matter kid; Lebeau and his money not good enough for you?'

Remy blinked at him almost timidly, 'Non…..it……it's not dat……but…' he stammered breathing hard and fast.

'No buts kid. Shit boy, I thought you were a thief; not a punk coward. The man's dumb enough to give you everything you want for nothing and you're running away? What are you kid, stupid?'

Remy shook his head vigorously in denial and then plucked up the courage to argue. 'But what he gon want from me?' he asked. It was a sensible question and one Scalphunter didn't want the boy asking.

'I ain't dumb homme; dere no way dat M'sieur Lebeau not gon want somet'ing from dis boy……an' what he gon do when I can't deliver on it?'

Remy clutched the wrist with the watch close to his chest, curling his other hand protectively around it as he peered at Scalphunter nervously through his over long bangs, 'I ain't his son, can't never be his boy; I'm devil spawn, me.'

'Then damn well act like it kid!' Scalphunter snapped.

He gave the kid a look that been known to cause even hardened mercenaries to back down in a fight. Remy scrunched up in the corner of the booth in fright without realising it. Scalphunter watched the kid's throat pulse as he swallowed convulsively.

'Take what you can kid, while you can. Nothing lasts in this world boy. Take what Lebeau has to give and use it. Why he's doing it shouldn't matter to you; all you need to worry about is taking care of yourself.'

'But…'

Scalphunter reached out lightning fast and smacked the kid around the head. The boy yelped and stared at him, eyes huge in a pale face.

'Don't argue with me, kid. Are you forgetting who I work for? The devil wants you to live with Lebeau. Are you going to argue with your maker?'

It was a low blow but Scalphunter figured it was the best way to get the kid back with Lebeau where he'd be safe, cared for, and might actually learn what it was to be treated well. He ignored the boy's sniffles as Remy struggled to comprehend what Scalphunter had told him.

'H…homme?' Remy piped up after a long while of charged silence.

'What?'

'You gon come 'round to see me if'n I stay wit' de Lebeaus….jus' in case t'ings not work out?'

There was something in the kid's eyes that twisted Scalphunter's insides. It reminded him of the look in his niece Clair's eyes when he left her alone to go and work for the boss.

'No kid,' he said softly and saw the impact of those words on the boy land like a solid blow. He saw the gut wrenching pain and fear of abandonment leech all the colour from the boy's face. Scalphunter found that even he wasn't immune to the look and softened his tone as he spoke again.

'You don't need me anymore, Remy. Old man Lebeau will take care of you.' Scalphunter smirked humourlessly, 'In fact you'll forget all about me soon enough.'

'No!' The kid denied this vehemently and passionately but then Remy didn't know about the chip in his brain that Essex had planted two years ago. That chip would ensure that Remy remembered only what Essex wanted him to and would forget what Essex wanted him to forget, until the time Remy came of age.

'No, homme, you got to tell me where you be! You be my friend; don't trust no one like I do you, m'sieur!' Remy was getting agitated again. Tears stood out visibly on his eyelashes; his devilish eyes were swimming.

For a kid who had grown up as hard as Remy the kid seemed strangely…dependent on others. Instead of hating a world that didn't give a shit about him Remy just wanted to find his place in it.

Scalphunter shook his head; that kind of attitude would get the kid killed if he didn't grow out of it pretty quick. He met Remy's wide eyed gaze.

The kid's eyes were truly pitiful and Scalphunter shook his head again as he said the lines Essex had told him to say thereby planting the seed in the kid's brain that would some day lead him right back to Essex's doorstep. Scalphunter sighed sometimes he really hated his job.

'Okay kid, how's this? You ever get into trouble that old man Lebeau can't get you out of you just get yourself to a town called Millstone in Arizona.' He paused and then decided that he might as well go the whole way now he'd started.

'I've got a bar there, the Du Lac bar, and a niece a couple years older than you. You just get yourself there and I'll come for you, okay?'

The kid's smile was radiant, 'Oui homme; Millstone Arizona. I'll remember dat for sure.'

* * *

**2009- Arizona - a stones throw from Millstone**

Remy continued to sit in the rain, like a sopping Cajun gargoyle crouched in the shadow of the ancient red rocks, trying to suppress the slightly unhinged desire to giggle uncontrollably. Somehow he felt that would ruin the pathos of the moment. Mon dieu but laughing sure beat crying and he was getting real sick of this pity trip he'd been trapped on for months.

Guilt was one thing; self-pity would ruin his reputation right quick.

He laughed after all; unable to keep it in. The laughter helped beat down the tension that was making his chest tight. This sort of stress could kill a homme.

'Ah, Lord God, I need a shrink.'

As if to grant emphatic agreement with this self-assessment the sky gave forth a huge crack of thunder. Ironically Remy saluted the storm, still grinning at the ludicrous circumstances of his life.

He shook his head snickering, 'I'm sittin' out in de rain laughin' at not'ing. Got to be crazy, me.'

Hell he was so royally screwed……this whole 'plan' was never going to work. He should have just lined his pockets with stones and jumped into the Hudson. What made him think he could gain any control of his train wreck of a life in the first place?

Swiping at the water logged strands of hair falling into his eyes he shook his head in self-disgust, 'Oh woe is me; suck it up and deal wit' it already. You sound like a pussy whinin' on to no one.'

Not to mention talking to himself was a sure sign of madness. He clucked his tongue amusedly; that boat had sailed a long time ago.

Remy watched the sky again; black as pitch and roaring her pain down upon the Earth. He closed his eyes and listened to the music of the storm; it was the sound of betrayal, hell, it was practically the theme tune to his life.

'Suck it up, homme.' He berated himself once more.

He'd really thought he'd feel better now he'd broken loose of Essex's mind trap, but clearly he was even more messed up than even _he_ had thought.

Eventually as the storm began to burn itself out he opened his eyes again. The sodden hair at the nape of his neck stood up on end; he smiled in silent triumph - _finally_. Remy rose to his feet. His fingers twitched and every nerve in his body was alive with awareness; Grey Crow was here – just like he'd said he'd be all those years ago. It was time.

'Hey kid.'

Remy turned slowly, drenched by the rain and shivering in his coat with the bruises still decorating his face. Above his head the sky screamed once more and the landscape was bleached white as bone and black as old blood. Before the patchwork of that black and white world Grey Crow looked exactly like the spectre of death come to join the party with his gun drawn and held across his body.

Remy Lebeau bowed to his nemesis du jour, 'Mister Reaper Man.'

Scalphunter twitched a little in recognition of the old nickname. His fingers tapped over the barrel of his custom shotgun. 'Got your memories back then kid?'

Remy smiled caustically but it never reached his eyes, hidden as always behind rain spattered glasses, 'Sure looks dat way.' He laughed softly and cocked his head to the side. 'So tell me, m'sieur, you come for my blood?'

Scalphunter's lips quivered in an expression that was not a smile; in fact, in any other man that very twitch might have indicated guilt. In Scalphunter it was just a twitch.

'Nah kid, not today.'

Remy nodded and withdrew a brace of throwing knives from his trench pocket. He held them fanned out between his knuckles, but did not charge them yet. The rain stopped as if someone had flipped a switch, it was just suddenly gone, and the thunder was just a distant grumble on the blackened horizon.

'We gon fight now, mon ami?'

He asked quietly as the storm finally died and left nothing but silence in the empty wasteland of the Arizona desert. The scent of static electricity, wet rock and dust hung heavily on the damp air. The atmosphere was as enervating as the inside of a tomb - and just as forbidding.

In that emptiness of the moment seconds ticked by; it felt like the entire world was waiting on the other man's answer with bated breath.

Grey Crow, the man known as Scalphunter and the man who had once been Remy's childhood protector, pointed his gun directly at him and smiled thinly. Time started once more rushing forward with the inevitability of death.

'Yeah kid, we're going to fight now.'

The Reaper Man fired then, straight at Remy's head.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Thirteen: Desolation**

The Reaper Man fired, straight at Remy's head and the kid ducked smoothly, just as they both knew he would.

The brace of needle sharp steel spikes flew free of Remy's fingers even before he straightened from the duck and this time Scalphunter had to take evasive action. Swerving out of the way of the knives Scalphunter only had time to realise they were not charged before he was sent flying head over heels across the drying dirt by a two footed kick to the sternum.

'What took you homme? I been waitin' in de rain here!'

The Cajun flew through the air, a madly somersaulting shadow against a thunderous sky; all coat tails and hellfire eyes.

Scalphunter twisted, raising and aiming his gun instinctively. It did him no good however as before he could squeeze off a round the kid had landed on him, a silent bundle of long coat, wild hair and blazing eyes. He did not seem to care about the gun at all. His fists hammered into Scalphunter's face and it was all the older man could do to turn his head to avoid two instantly blacked eyes; as it was he felt it when two back molars were knocked from his jaw. He tasted blood and struggled to free his pinned arms to defend himself; damn but he'd forgotten how _fast_ the kid was.

'You never write, you don' phone, mon ami, you keep dis up an' dis boy gon t'ink you don' like him no more.'

A long fingered hand curled around Scalphunter's neck as the other arm pulled back, fast and smooth as a piston, and slammed down in another punch. Scalphunter took the blow without offering resistance even as he felt his cheekbone crack. Remy's knuckles split, coated in blood, sweat, and dirt.

Unable to fire the shotgun properly at such short range Scalphunter tried to use the barrel to bludgeon the side of the kid's head and knock him loose. Remy wasn't having any of it though; he ducked the blow, grabbed hold of the gun barrel, charged it, and leapt clear of Scalphunter all in one ridiculously fast motion.

'Now homme; is dat any way to greet your old friend?'

The kid skipped away moving so lightly across the ground that his steel toed boots barely seemed to touch the dirt. He flexed his fingers and frowned down at his bloodied fist.

Scalphunter leapt to his feet, throwing the gun from him before the lividly glowing shotgun could explode in his hands. The impact of the explosion most likely would have taken most of his face and upper chest with it.

The shotgun bounced across the dirty, muddy ground spitting fuchsia sparks as it did so and then came to rest in a puddle. There was a hiss from the hot metal but that was all. It did not explode and within seconds the charge dissipated smoothly.

'What…?'

'Surprise!' Remy grinned at him; a sly mad hatter with rain tangled hair. 'Betcha didn' see dat comin', non?'

Scalphunter stared at the man before him and wondered just how he could have missed all the signs. This wasn't the kid he knew. That boy had been deceitful and devious, sure, but he had never been truly vindictive, never truly cruel. The man standing before him now grinning maliciously in his tattered trench coat darkened from the rain and slicked with gritty mud, was out for blood. Scalphunter could see it in the young man's hard gaze; he wanted nothing less than to laugh in Scalphunter's face as he killed him.

It was like looking into a distorted mirror; for the very first time Scalphunter wondered if he really knew the kid at all. Hell, Remy had been screwed around with so much over the years he doubted anyone really knew what he was capable of; least of all Remy himself. He doubted even the boss knew what the kid might be capable of.

Scalphunter rolled his shoulders as he watched the kid warily. There was a strange static-y tingling running over his chest and shoulders - like a friction burn.

Remy smiled at him and raised his right hand, thumb touching first finger lightly and Scalphunter saw that the tips of his two digits were glowing faintly. The smile grew even broader.

'Now for my next trick……'

'What the f….' the strange tingling sensation intensified creeping over Scalphunter's body starting from his shoulders and then crawling down his arms, and across the stretch of his back. Along with the tingling there was a strange sense of ticklish heat. He looked down at his coat sleeves.

'Fuck!'

His leather duster was glowing hot pink. He stared up at the kid in a moment of total surprise.

Remy laughed and dived sideways for the shotgun he had tricked Scalphunter into throwing away as the other man ripped off the coat before it blew. Scalphunter threw the coat towards the kid, trying to turn the weapon against its maker.

'Hey now, mon ami, you gon an' ruined de surprise.'

The kid fired the shotgun and the coat blew into a million particles of glowing light in midair. Not that Scalphunter had time to enjoy the spectacle; Remy had the barrel of the gun pointed in his direction and his finger was squeezing down on the trigger while pieces of the leather coat burned to pink glowing ash in the heavy, sodden air.

The kid grinned at him, sharp as a viper, 'An' now for de partin' shot.'

He fired.

* * *

Scott massaged the pounding ache between his eyes, fingers rubbing just above the rim of his visor. He had a migraine coming on for sure. Slumped in the chair in the office with his elbows on Charles' desk Scott jumped at the knock on the door.

'Come in?'

The door opened and Storm slipped inside. 'You wished to speak with me, Scott?'

'Oh yes, thanks Ororo, come in and take a seat.' He tried to pull himself together and gestured to the visitor chair on the other side of the desk.

Ororo, out of uniform and dressed in a pale lavender sarong and head scarf with white camisole, seemed to float across the carpet to settle demurely in the chair. Her cat like blue eyes watched him intently.

'You are looking pale; would you like me to relieve you so that you can rest?'

Ororo crossed one leg over the other, 'Betsy is still asleep, as is Threnody. However Hank remains confident both shall awaken soon.' Ororo's expression clouded, 'Rogue has yet to wake from the sedation however.'

Scott winced. It was nothing less than a minor miracle that they had managed to get away from the hospital without being lynched by the patients and staff. When they had found Rogue on the roof of an adjacent building she was, unsurprisingly, hysterical and Jean had had no choice but to knock her out telepathically. Hank had been keeping Rogue sedated ever since for everyone's comfort until they could figure out what to do about her. Scott silently cursed. The whole situation was a complete mess – what he wouldn't give to have the professor here now!

Shaking off wistful thinking he smiled faintly, 'Trust me Ororo there is nothing I'd like better than to go and crawl under a rock somewhere and just sleep into the next decade – but there is something important I need to talk to you about first.'

'Remy.' Ororo's expression did not shift. He nodded.

'There is something I need to ask you, though I'm pretty sure I know the answer already.' He blew out a breath, not relishing what he had to say, 'Ororo, did you know about Gambit's association with Sinister?'

Ororo always so staid and calm even under the greatest of pressures blanched and sat back momentarily in her chair, 'Sinister?'

Scott closed his eyes, not that the woman across from him could see it, 'So you didn't know.' He gathered his thoughts, 'I didn't think you had known, in fact I'm sure if you had you would have told me, but I had to be sure.'

'I do not think it is I who needs to be telling you anything.' Ororo pointed out crisply, sitting tall in the chair, 'What possible connection does Remy have with Sinister?' her gaze was intense, blue eyes emphatic. 'And how is it that you know and I did not?'

Scott raised a forestalling hand, 'Firstly Ororo, I only found out about this myself after Gambit's disappearance. Jean told me, and she had been sworn to secrecy by Charles.'

'Sworn to secrecy – Scott I do not understand.'

Scott nodded. 'I'm not sure I do either,' he admitted ruefully. He sighed and chose his words carefully. Ororo was the dry run before he dropped this bombshell on the rest of the team.

'All Jean would tell me was that Gambit confided in Charles that at some point in the past, before he joined the X-Men, he was,' Scott pursed his lips, this would be the difficult part, he sighed and tried again.

'Well…..Jean said he'd been subject to some kind of experimentation at Sinister's hands, something involving his powers. There was more to it, I could tell, but either Jean doesn't know or she isn't saying.'

Scott met Ororo's eyes, although she could not see his at all, 'The impression I have is that whatever Sinister did, Remy didn't volunteer for it.'

Ororo squeezed her eyes closed as if in pain; her long graceful hand fluttering to her chest. 'Goddess preserve us all; let it not be so,' she whispered fervently. Scott waited a moment until Ororo had internalised this new information.

'Ororo, I don't want to ask, but in light of everything that has happened, from Gambit's disappearance to Threnody's appearance and Rogue's weird behaviour,' He took a deep breath, 'Do you know what the 'Garden' is?'

Scott had spent the last hour trying to puzzle out that cryptic message Gambit had scrawled over his wall, especially since Threnody had alluded to the same thing. He could not escape the very real prospect that it was all intimately connected with Sinister, or that more bad news was just around the corner. He needed to be prepared and without concrete answers he couldn't be.

Ororo pursed her lips and looked down at her hands folded in her lap, 'Eden,' she said softly and Scott was certain he had misheard until she spoke again.

'That is the only garden I can think of that Remy might reference – the Garden of Eden.'

* * *

Scalphunter threw himself backward and rolled head over heels to avoid the gunshot. He righted himself in a predators crouch just in time to leap out of the way as another bullet opened a crater in the hard desert earth, spitting sand and grit into the air.

'C'mon now homme, it's not like you can die for good, non?' Remy pumped the shotgun and almost daintily advanced on Scalphunter.

The barrel of the gun was glowing and the smile the younger man gave his former friend was downright fiendish. 'You owe me mon ami; I figure it's your turn to bleed for me dis time.'

Another bullet and another near miss; Scalphunter rued the day he'd created that particular gun……and the day, years ago, he'd taught the kid how to use it.

'Scalphunter, sil vous plait, give it up already!' the Cajun aimed the gun for another headshot and this time he was no longer smiling, 'You owe me homme. I'm not about to let you screw me over again.'

Scalphunter didn't answer with words; instead he pulled his handgun from his ankle holster and fired off three bullets aimed for the chest. If he had been fighting any other man, at that close range, with the sun half blinding his opponent, at least one of those bullets would have come home to roost in the kid's lung. Unfortunately, Remy was not just 'any other man'.

The Cajun sidestepped the barrage of bullets with almost impish grace, bent his knees, and leapt for Scalphunter. He moved like a tiger in mid-spring; at the last instant he twisted in mid air so that he led feet first. The sun, fighting its own battle with the darkling clouds, sent shards of golden light to stripe the cracked and shattered earth. Sunlight seared over the edges of the kid's silhouette as he collided with the momentarily sun-dazzled Scalphunter.

The older man managed to deflect the high kick aimed at his head and the answering downward sweep of the long arm with the shotgun barrel swinging like a cudgel from his hand. Still the impact of that dexterous dual attack staggered him and Scalphunter was unable to fire off further shots from his handgun.

Remy vaulted over his head and landed neat as a tomcat behind him, the sun now at his back and in Scalphunter's eyes. Red pinpricks of pure rage fixed him with a cold, humourless glare.

Remy manoeuvred the shotgun for a better grip, half straightening from his crouch. His hands stroked over the glowing barrel. Scalphunter knew that the kid was visualising blowing him into bloodied pieces. It was as if all those months mentoring the kid after he left New Orleans had finally borne fruit.

The lessons in hate Remy had refused to learn then were written across every cold line and sharp angle of his face now.

'Ev'rybody always tol' dis boy he be no good – devil spawn, street trash, no good t'ief, lousy husband, not fit to dream o' somet'ing better….' The words were heated ice, squeezed from a throat locked down by unadulterated fury. It seemed like Essex was right; the kid had finally snapped.

It was only years of living on the edge that tipped Scalphunter to the slightest twitching of the kid's fingers. He readied himself to avoid the shot – and found himself wondering why he bothered.

This was what he'd always wanted for the kid, after all; to make him a killer.

* * *

'The Garden of Eden?'

Scott was sure he had misheard. Sinister he could deal with, but discussions over religion he could do without. His headache continued to pound at his temples; this was not going to be one of his better days.

'Yes,' Ororo said calmly. She seemed to hesitate and then sighed in resignation dropping her eyes, 'You do not know Remy, Scott, and you do not understand him. It is difficult for me to explain.'

The slightest quiver of annoyance ran through him, 'It wasn't for lack of trying. Damn it, Ororo, Gambit has made it very clear that he doesn't want _any_ of us to understand him.' Scott shook his head savagely as his fist lightly pounded onto the desktop.

'I mean, Christ, if anyone on this team could understand his past with Sinister it would be me or even Jean – yet he never said a word.'

'I know.' Ororo remained calm and unperturbed; her gaze watchful and, in her own way, her expression as secretive and implacable as Gambit's perpetual poker face.

'I meant no reproach towards you, Scott. You are right; Remy does not want you to know him.'

Scott frowned. He sensed that somehow those words meant more than her tone implied.

'Why not?' he tried to swallow down his frustration and failed, 'Ororo, if I'd known about the Sinister thing earlier – well, it would have explained a helluva lot about his trust issues for a start. We could have worked with him, dealt with them as a team -'

Ororo actually smiled slightly and shook her head, 'And that is why he would never tell you, or me, or anyone.'

She looked very keenly at him, her exotic eyes rooting into his as if she could see beyond the opaque red shield of his visor. 'Tell me, Scott, do you believe in hell?'

Scott blinked. 'In the literal sense?' She nodded.

He paused trying to think seriously about the question despite the strangeness of it, 'No, no I don't believe in a literal hell.' He said eventually, 'I think hell can exist in the mind, but in the biblical sense of the burning lake and Dante's Inferno; no I don't believe in hell.'

Ororo nodded, eyes calm and unreadable, 'Remy does. He believes that there is a place called hell – what's more he believes that he is destined to spend his eternity there.' Ororo watched him with her cat eyes bright and intense, 'An eternity of pain and torment; that is what Remy believes in as strongly as he believes the sun will rise in the morning.'

Scott opened his mouth to speak and found he could think of nothing to say. He pressed his lips together and tried to place himself in Gambit's shoes; he tried to imagine what it must feel like to believe in a real hell and to believe that was what awaited you hereafter. He found the notion impossible to fathom; even accounting for all the miraculous resurrections and extraordinary things he had experienced in his life he could not accept that someone could live their life everyday believing that they were going to hell.

He stared at Ororo for a long moment and saw in her eyes that she understood his thoughts; or at least the flavour of them.

'I didn't know Gambit was religious.' He said weakly after a long moment of silence and could have kicked himself for saying something that foolish and pointless. Ororo shrugged delicately.

'He is, I suppose, a fallen Catholic, though I would say his belief does not truly fall within the structure of any organised religion.' She paused and her expression quirked, she cast an almost sly look Scott's way, head canted to the side. 'He certainly does not hold to the commandments.'

Her lips curled in a dry smile. Scott chuckled.

'Yeah I'd think he'd have a few problems with those; thou shalt not steal could be a real stumper.'

Ororo laughed with him, 'I believe that the trick is all in the interpretation.'

She shook her head and sobered before her gaze grew keen again, 'If you wish to understand Remy you must know this one thing: Remy has a god, he simply lacks faith.'

Scott frowned, 'How can you have one without the other?'

Ororo smiled faintly but her eyes were sad, 'Often I have asked myself the same question; I have yet to find an adequate answer.' She met Scott's eyes with her own uncompromising, quiet gaze.

'You are not the only one who does not understand him, Scott,' An expression of acute pain crossed her features, 'Goddess no.'

'What is it?' Scott leaned forward fascinated despite himself; he could tell she had just thought of something. Ororo looked back at him her eyes wide. She gestured with her hands as she spoke.

'Remy and I do not speak of the past. We speak of our passions and out pastimes. We go to art exhibits and galleries together and I try to convince him to quit smoking and he tries to coax me to eat meat.' She smiled faintly but her expression swiftly grew sombre.

'But…?' Scott sensed there was something Ororo had thought of but was reluctant to say. Scott frowned; it was high time Gambit's secrets were laid bare. The picture of the man he'd developed over the last month suggested that Gambit – or rather Remy Lebeau - was a totally different person than Scott, and most of the X-men, had ever imagined.

At the very least he was shaping up to be considerably more dangerous.

Ororo sighed, hands fluttering like caged birds in her lap, 'On the rare occasion Remy has spoken to me of his conviction that he is bound for hell, he would sometimes also speak of his hatred for the 'devil'.' She fluttered her hands upwards in a formless gesture as she tried to find the words.

'The way he spoke, I always suspected that he referred to a real being – someone who had hurt him and earned his hatred in the past, and a being that was a constant threat to his future.'

She looked up at Scott, hands growing still, 'I can think of no creature better suited to the title of devil than Sinister.'

* * *

The kid's face twisted in anger, and a grief that Scalphunter could never hope to understand, as he fired the gun again. Once more Scalphunter was forced to leap out of the way.

Shit, but the kid was charging the bullets inside the barrel before he fired! They were coming out of the gun like tiny rocket shells and exploding on impact.

'You know what homme?'

He demanded voice low and controlled; the rage in his eyes not yet infecting those drawled, disinterested syllables. He fired again and Scalphunter cursed the fact that his custom gun could carry so many slugs.

'You know what de worst part of it is? I mean beyond de pain an' de betrayal.'

The old mercenary avoided the shot and the heavy handed swing at his head Remy made with the barrel of the gun. So far he was keeping ahead of the attacks, but then he had a feeling Remy was just toying with him. Even when the gun ran out of bullets Remy would just charge whatever came to hand and start hurling grenades at him. The odds in this battle were in the kid's favour and always had been. Hell the kid was bloodlust crazy enough right now to beat him into a pulp with his bare hands if it came to it. Scalphunter resigned himself to death; it wasn't like it would be the first time.

The kid was still talking, but then again, he never did shut up.

'You listenin' to me, homme?'

He asked coming forward, preparing the shotgun for another round. The strange preternatural calmness, the almost deranged triviality, of his tone was not matched by his actions. Scalphunter could see the tremor in the kid's hands as they shook violently. Still he did not know what caused that tremor. The kid was deep in bloodlust territory and hesitation wasn't an issue. So what was he afraid of; Scalphunter, or himself?

'You know what really gets me, homme?'

The Cajun asked of him once more and this close Scalphunter could see that the younger man was shaking from the ends of his hair to his toes; almost like a junky in need of a fix - or like he used to before Essex fixed his powers, Scalphunter realised with no little trepidation. Remy's face was bleached of vitality and he looked……crazed.

'What kid?' Scalphunter asked because it seemed that Remy wanted, no _needed_, him to speak.

Remy blinked down on him; the sun peaking out through a bank of tattered late storm clouds and spreading like a ribbon of throbbing gold across the desert. The light hit the kid head on, causing him to wince. The cresting sun cast long shadows and threw the kid into a panelled cage of light and dark; he was neither one with the shadow or the light.

Shit but hadn't that always been the kid's problem? He wasn't cruel enough for Essex and he wasn't pure enough for Xavier's rabble. The kid was crucified daily on the cross of impossible expectation.

'I'm tired of it all,' the voice was small and quiet. It was not Remy at all, and yet, at the same time, it was, 'All my God damned life I been tryin' to prove y'all wrong. You know dat, right homme?'

Scalphunter heard the beseeching quality in the much younger man's voice. He nodded.

'Yeah kid; I figured that.'

He had known this kid since he was eight years old. He'd trained the boy when Lebeau cut him loose, despite the kid not remembering who he was, and he'd always seen the softness in him; the longing for acceptance that had always been Remy's greatest weakness.

Scalphunter saw now what it had reduced the kid to as the first tears streaked his dirt smeared face.

* * *

Scott Summers sucked in a breath, 'The devil is Sinister?'

Ororo nodded, 'I can imagine no better candidate.' Her frown grew pensive.

'Alright,' Scott pressed his fingertips to his forehead, 'So what does that mean? What connection does that have with the Garden of Eden - or Threnody for that matter; they both mentioned a garden.'

Ororo shook her head, 'I do not know.' Her fingers laced together in her lap, 'I may be incorrect in my interpretation; the garden may be something else. I did not know about Sinister after all.' The faintest hint of self-reproach filled her voice.

'Ororo – answer me this,' Scott said as ideas began to percolate in his mind and he drew correlations between what he knew of Gambit from observation and what he had recently found out about the man's past and philosophy. He did not like the picture he was developing one bit. Ororo looked at him expectantly.

'I will answer whatever I can, as best I can.'

Scott nodded vaguely as he tried to formulate the words of his question as he spoke. 'If Gambit felt that the devil was after him, if he thinks he's already damned and going to hell, what would he do? Would he just give in and accept it - if he's damned already?'

Ororo shook her head without hesitation, 'No Scott. He would never surrender to it. Damned he may be but I believe in my heart and soul that he has committed himself to living out the rest of his life in service to good. He will defy his fate with everything in him until he can draw breath no longer.'

Scott nodded once again feeling cold in his very veins. Christ don't let him be right; don't let him be right. Gambit couldn't really be trying to single-handedly beat Sinister at his own game - could he?

'Then what would he do, Ororo? What would he be prepared to do?' Scott pressed and saw the buried fear break free in Ororo's eyes.

'Whatever he has to do, Scott; whatever a damned soul must.'

* * *

Scalphunter watched Remy as the tears fell and found he was too empty for pity and had been for a very long time.

'Yeah kid, I know - you never wanted this life. I know that.'

Eighteen years vanished in an eye-blink. It wasn't a man of twenty-six standing above Scalphunter with a gun trained at his head any longer. Instead it was a filthy, exhausted malnourished eight year old that had no one in the world to depend on.

That phantom child locked behind Remy's eyes nodded, sick relief washing out the rage. He dropped to his knees and let the shotgun slip from his fingers.

'D'accord…..jus' wanted someone to know.' He whispered head bowed as all the fight left him. 'It's not like it matters, right?' he glanced at Scalphunter with dead eyes. 'But I jus' wanted de chance to say my piece – ev'rybody gon be judgin' me soon enough anyhow.'

'I get it kid; I get it.'

Scalphunter understood well enough; it just didn't matter. It didn't matter what Remy wanted - all that mattered was what Essex had planned for him. Remy was deluding himself thinking he had a choice. He was a street-rat thief; he was Essex's property, just like Scalphunter himself. That was all there was to it.

Red eyes stared at him; squinting in the sun as if the kid was struggling to keep him in focus.

'I'm tired of it, mon ami, I'm jus' so tired of tryin' to play by _dere_ rules.' A shaking hand rose to his eyes and scrubbed at the tears, only managing to rub grit and dust into the tear tracks.

'De rules are fixed, de cards marked…..dere be no way I can win no matter how hard I try.'

Sunlight danced on the surface of the shallow mud puddles scattered around the two men and cast long, distorted shadows across the emptiness. The terrible stillness of the desert pressed down on both their heads.

'Dey will never let me win…..if'n I play de game dere way.' A dull eyed resolution seemed to fill the void in the kid's gaze. He turned to look straight at Scalphunter.

'So I guess I'm gon have to change de rules, non? Can't be de good guy, ain't got no will to be de villain - gon have to change de rules to fit, oui?'

Desolation was replaced by a hard jawed determination that had always been lacking in the kid before now. Remy had never lacked the skill or the smarts to be the ruthless professional Essex wanted and Scalphunter had tried to train him to be, but he'd always lacked the desire and, yeah, he'd also lacked the cold-blooded hate to turn his back on the world.

Now it seemed despair would do what hate and hardship had failed to do - and give Remy to Sinister completely.

Scalphunter said nothing, for there was nothing to say; it was about time the kid accepted what his life was. He'd be happier once he gave up hoping for something better. Hoping only ever lead to pain; Scalphunter had learnt that years before he'd ever met Essex and it seemed like Remy had finally come around to the truth.

Another man would have seen the tragedy; Scalphunter was beyond such things.

The silence stretched as Scalphunter watched the young man before him lose all his hope one choked breath after the other while the sun sat above their heads, impassive and indifferent, pouring down heat that did not warm. The cracked and arid ground began to heat and the dust to bake. The shadows stretched long and thin and omnipresent across the empty plain and still there was only silence.

The first harsh sob from the kid did not so much break the silence, but instead seemed to enforce it. Remy dug his blood stained fingers into the gritty dirt and hung his head; still too proud to show the tears. His voice was muffled by his posture when he spoke again.

'I'm tired o' failin'…..tired o' tryin to care, an' love, an' have faith and do all dat shit folks say you gotta do to live a _good_ life,' he shook his head in counterpoint to the withering contempt heavy in his voice but still he did not look up, 'I'm tired o' gettin' beat down for not bein' fucking good enough.'

The sun, one hard white eye, continued to glare down on them as the shadows crept like thieves over the rocks in the desert. Way back on the distant highway the occasional car and semi-articulated truck roared by – but those were sights and sounds from another world.

Scalphunter only watched as the kid slumped down on his side onto the wet dust and curled in on himself like a man shielding a mortal wound. Remy palmed his face in his hands and wept brokenly then. Scalphunter continued to do nothing but stand witness.

Essex had said the kid would crack eventually. Hell the boss had _planned_ for it. All that guilt and blame that Essex had carefully and deliberately nurtured inside the kid's head, had finally taken its toll.

The kid had given up.

Scalphunter had always wondered if Remy might have the strength, or sheer deluded stubbornness, to beat Essex's head games; especially after he survived the massacre, an act of senseless violence designed by the boss to drive Remy insane with guilt. Now however he saw that Essex was right – that Essex was always right.

It had only ever been a matter of time.

Moved by some alien and almost completely forgotten desire to comfort, Scalphunter reached out to touch the shaking shoulder. Remy's hands dropped from his face and he blinked up at Scalphunter as one of his hand wrapped, almost furtively, around Scalphunter's wrist.

The red eyes fixed on his. 'Do you ever get tired o' it all homme?'

The hand gripping his wrist tightened fractionally but Scalphunter did not fight the grip anymore now than he would have bothered to shake off the eight year old child he had found all those years ago.

'Sure kid, all the time.'

Scalphunter shrugged. In truth he was beyond tired. He no longer noticed the howling emptiness in his soul. He did not bother to watch the kid's other hand as it drifted down to his trench coat covered hip.

Remy's lips twitched in an expression too remote to be a smile and something sparked in the depths of his eyes that alarmed Scalphunter for a moment; it was only then that he realised, despite the noisy sobbing of moments ago, that Remy's eyes were dry as desert bones.

'D'accord…..dat was all I needed to know.'

Scalphunter's instincts screamed danger – but he was already caught. The Cajun's eyes burned into his. It was then, a fraction of a second after it was too late, that the old mercenary realised his mistake. The kid was already in motion.

Remy moved too fast for Scalphunter to do anything but blink. Like a serpent coiling back along his own body length Remy surged upwards, his one hand holding Scalphunter's immobile while the other came free from the fold of his trench coat.

The sunlight flashing off the evaporating puddles caught upon the flat of the hunting knife in the kid's hand as it slashed in a broad sweeping sideways arc to find a sheath in the side of Scalphunter's neck.

'Urk….' Blood bubbled from his lips but he felt no pain. The charge of the kid's powers cauterised the wound and filled Scalphunter's body with a tingling fission that burned away any pain that could have overcome the initial numbing shock.

'You never did know me, homme.' There was no triumph in the kid's voice; it was flat and dead as the desert air. 'Did you t'ink I'd break dat easy? Did you t'ink I'd ever let dat monster use me again?'

All Scalphunter could do was stare into Remy's eyes as the kid rose onto his knees still holding the knife in one hand and Scalphunter's wrist in the other.

The fire in the kid's eyes was familiar to Scalphunter. He had seen it every day in the shaving mirror. It was the cold burn of a killer; the ice and fire of a man who can pull down on the trigger when a mark's begging on his knees for mercy and not even blink.

It was the look of a Marauder. It was a look Scalphunter had never thought to see in Remy's eyes.

'Dis is war, mon ami. I ain't never lettin' Essex make me his weapon again.' It was a whisper on the winds of death. Scalphunter slumped forward against the kid's body. Remy's other hand dropped his wrist and came around his body in a dark parody of an embrace.

Scalphunter felt death's approach creep over him and knew he would be dead within the minute. He could not muster the energy to care. The only regret he felt was for the little boy he'd once known, the child he had betrayed twice to Sinister. The child he still saw in the cold red eyes as they watched his life depart him from mere inches away.

'Need you to do something for me, mon ami,' Remy said as the world faded into a thousand screaming specks of grey oblivion before Scalphunter's eyes, 'When you see Essex, tell him: dat I'll be _seeing him real soon_.'

Remy twisted the blade savagely once before he wrenched the knife from Scalphunter's throat. Scalphunter died then with neither a whimper nor a scream. For the longest time Remy simply knelt there in the dirt and blood looking into the man once called Grey Crow's lifeless eyes. Above his head the sun continued to burn, but he could not feel its heat.

'Goodbye mon ami,' he whispered salt tears falling upon the slack features of the dead man. He raised the hand still clutching the knife and stared at the blood slicked blade thrumming with energy. He gritted his teeth and refused to let any more tears fall.

'I'm sorry.' He let the body slide from his arms and dropped the knife unto the parched and cracked desert floor. The knife glowed in the dirt as the charge spread out around the blade.

Scalphunter's body hit the dirt a second later and his blood mingled with mud to run weakly through the cracks in the earth. His empty eyes stared at nothing as the man in the long coat strode away with the midday sun at his back and his shadow before him.

Seconds later the charge that had spread from the knife into the molecules of the rock and the pores of Scalphunter's dead flesh, ignited. The explosion was silent and when the dust settled there was nothing to mark Scalphunter's resting place save a huge gaping wound in the red Arizona rock.

Far away and over the flat dead air, the growl of a motorbike punctured the silence. Scalphunter's killer rode away and never once looked back.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fourteen: Protection**

Victor Creed tried to roll out of the way of the metal dumpster suspended in midair in a bubble of magnetic energy but wasn't fast enough as the bubble popped and the dumpster crashed down on top of him.

He tried to shove the empty dumpster off him even as the molecules of the metal melted and reformed around him. The constitution of the metal changed, becoming liquid chains that wrapped around his arms and legs and twisted his limbs behind his back until he ended up hogtied in metal.

He knew it had been a mistake to drag Dane away from the lot before he filleted the bitch; he should have just opened her up there and then and be done with it. Dragging her to this secluded alley had only given her the time to wake up – and to think, he'd actually thought it was smart move to get away from the site of the fight back at the lot in case Sinister turned up.

Creed snarled and twisted until his right shoulder popped out of joint; the flash of pain only intensified his anger. He glared through yellowed eyes at the woman he held personally responsible for his bad mood.

'Did you really think I'd bust you loose without a backup plan, Creed?'

Lorna Dane hovered just above the ground a few feet away, one hand extended as she concentrated on his shackles. She glared at him as fresh bruises from the tussle they'd had when she first woke up complimented the set from her fight with the Marauders hours earlier.

Victor Creed lost to all thought and, choking on rage, merely snarled like a caged tiger.

Dane looked at him for a long moment and then, to his surprise, she flipped her wrist and let him shake free of the metal chains. Creed wasted no time leaping through the air straight at her. He expected to be repelled by her magnetic shield, he expected the attack to fail – still it was the principle of the thing. He couldn't let a frail think she had Victor Creed beaten.

Creed made contact with Dane, knocking her into the wall of the alley; distantly the part of the man that was not solely taken up with his primal and basest instincts had wits enough to know that he'd been _allowed _to breach her shield but it was a faint voice of caution lost in the midst of red and bloody triumph.

Grinning savagely Creed reared back, claws flashing in the sulphurous light of a street lamp; he was going to enjoy ripping the frail's face off. Pinned against the wall and weighted down by his body Lorna Dane looked up at him from a mask of contempt. Creed hesitated; where was the fear? Where was the fight to save her own life? Warning bells penetrated the thick fog of bloodlust in his mind. Dane's green eyes flashed with a jolt of power.

Creed howled as it felt like a small bomb detonated in the back of his head; a synapse burning wave of agony cascaded through his body as he fell away from Dane. Clutching his head as he cowered, shaking with the aftershock, he peered up at the frail as she rose in the air once more. Her expression was a conflict of contempt and biting triumph. Creed growled low and furious.

'The chip is still active moron; I'm the only one who can turn it off!'

The damned woman flexed her fingers around a shimmer of greenish energy. Creed felt it as she played with the iron in his blood; a casual and deliberately nonchalant display of the power she had over him.

Sabretooth snarled as inside he seethed with hate and fury. The rage and humiliation he felt now would linger for a long time; festering into a passionate loathing.

The deeply buried and oft ignored inner voice of the rational man Victor Creed might have been if his life had been different, declared him a fool for thinking that even one of Xavier's pussies would be stupid enough to remove the chip from his mind entirely. The acid burn that came with knowing he could not lift a claw against anyone without Dane's say so was killing him slowly.

He wanted the damn chip out of his head - now!

Creed roared in futile rage as he felt the jerk on his arms and ankles as Dane levitated him in the air using nothing more than the iron in his blood stream. She dangled him upside down purely out of spite.

Yet despite his incandescent fury, a slightly colder, cooler voice inside noted that Dane had clearly been hiding her power from the X-cronies. She was cutting loose now and she wasn't afraid of what she could do. Distantly Creed wondered what had changed - and what had inspired the self-conscious and insecure Polaris to be so proactive.

Or maybe not _what_ – but who?

'If it was up to me, I'd leave you for Sinister or the government.' Dane snapped at him coldly, no longer bothering to pretend to be Malice. She's lost the choker in the fight anyhow. 'You deserve to be put down like a rabid dog.'

Creed frowned ignoring the insult as the cold, calculating killer inside him took control away from the unthinking ravenous beast he often pretended to be. Up to her; is that what she said? Did that mean she was working for someone else? Who; who else would she…..? Creed's lips curled in a contemptuous sneer.

There was only one person he knew who could have this effect on a frail – and only one other person who would know to tap Lorna in a fight against Sinister.

'The Cajun,' He sneered snidely but even so Creed was thinking now; oh yes, he was thinking now.

Lorna shrugged still keeping them both aloft in the air, 'He seems to think you'll be useful cannon fodder.'

Creed wasn't listening to her jibes; he was still thinking. He was thinking quite hard actually. He should have figured the Cajun was behind all this. He was the only one Creed knew twisted enough to think Dane pretending to be Malice was a good idea, which it was as it happened, but none of the holier than thou X-jerks would ever have the balls to make the play.

'Let's go Creed; we need to get to St Louis by sundown tomorrow.' Dane glared at him but once again Creed did not rise to the bait. The wheels turned in Sabretooth's nasty mind. He gave up all resistance as Dane dragged him through the air in a magnetic bubble as she streaked across the sky.

Sabretooth really badly wanted to gut the bitch; he wanted to eviscerate Lebeau even more. He stopped to savour that thought. He'd ripped open Lebeau that one time and it had been very satisfying; of course the Cajun punk had run before he could finish the job and Sinister had nearly killed Creed for it, but it had still been worth it.

Victor Creed smiled almost dreamily remembering the tang of the Cajun's blood and the noise he'd made, a strangled croak of pain, as Creed's clawed fingers had dug through the flesh and muscle of his abdomen in the subway tunnels.

He remembered the dazed incomprehension in the thief's eyes; not so much for what Creed did to him but at the carnage all around them. Sabretooth snickered delighted by the memory.

The sentimental asshole Cajun had been too busy trying to shield that runty, bony freak kid from him to put up any resistance. Creed licked his lips and found himself wondering how much more satisfying it would be to rip up the punk while he tried to fight?

Creed sobered slightly. He was a killer; he lived for the kill but despite what Dane said he was not rapid or completely insane. That was what made Creed both dangerous and reprehensible to those who called him enemy. There was still a man inside the Sabretooth – a man who could fight his instincts but chose not to.

Nevertheless when the man decided to assert himself he could push the red-rage beast away; he could be patient and plan. He could wait for his kill. He could control himself for greater gain later.

Creed smiled to himself. He could be patient; he'd play along for now. He'd play the cowed dog and wait for his opportunity. He'd gut the Dane bitch and then he'd take his sweet time getting revenge for this humiliation right out of the Cajun's hide; one blood dripping pound of flesh at a time.

Creed grinned, showing fang in the night; yeah, he could be patient.

At least for a little while longer.

* * *

Jean Grey-Summers looked over the three sleeping women in the medbay with a critical eye; there was something wrong here. Betsy should have awoken by now, at the very least. Threnody was an unknown factor. There was no telling how long her coma might last; Rogue had held on for at least thirty seconds after all - and as for Rogue herself – well! Jean shook her head; honestly she wasn't sure she even wanted to know what was going on with Rogue.

The phrase can of worms sprang to mind even thinking on it.

Leaving the doorway of the medlab Jean wandered through the cool, steel lined corridors of the Mansions sub-levels on her way to the elevator back up to the parlour where Scott had convened another meeting. They couldn't put it off telling the rest of the team any longer; especially not when the team all seemed to be dropping like flies.

Jean, for one, was not looking forward to this meeting. At least Scott had taken her suggestion to heart that it would be better to discuss these things in the parlour, where there was some comfort, than in the War Room. Environment was a little thing but Jean strongly believed that where a person was, and what they were doing at the time, massively influenced how they reacted to bad news.

The situation was tense and uncertain enough without the resident hot-heads jumping to conclusions. Goodness, Gambit and Mr Sinister were contentious topics among the team separately, associating the two was only going to make things a hundred times worse.

Still there was nothing for it; the team had to know the risks they might be facing. Jean could not in good conscience keep the truth from them any longer. She could only hope that the professor would understand her reasons.

Stepping into the spacious elevator she gazed into the mirrored wall sightlessly at her own reflection. She gnawed on her inside lip, already sore and ulcerated from previous bites and nips. How the team reacted to what she had to say was entirely dependent on how she said it.

If she erred on the side of caution and down-played the possible threat, then key members of the team, such as Ororo, would not be ready should the worst happen; if she over-played the threat she would, in a very real way, be ensuring that Gambit would never have a place on this team and in this _family _again.

It all rested on her shoulders – and she did not like it.

'Damn you Charles; why did you have to leave?' She whispered heatedly, tears of fatigue, stress, and anxiety stinging he eyes.

A large crack appeared along the length of the mirrored panel as her distress translated into an involuntary display of power. Jean cursed and pressed the balls of her hands into her eyes. She took several deep breaths and tried to let go of the anxiety that would do her no good whatsoever.

The elevator doors opened and Jean walked through them into the door stairs hall. When she entered the parlour where all the still active members of the team (except Hank who was watching the invalids) waited, she was as composed and calm as ever.

* * *

'Virgin Airways flight zero nine Tee Four to Los Angeles now ready for boarding at gates thirteen through fifteen. I repeat Virgin……'

The man waiting in the departures lounge sprawled in one of the uncomfortable waiting area chairs with his long legs stretched out before him and shades covering his eyes, looked up at the announcement and then returned to his hand of Solitaire.

Around him the waiting travellers in the airport milled about; some were obviously business folks and some were tourists. Remy Lebeau ignored them as he scooped up his cards and shuffled them distractedly.

He fanned the deck in his hands, snapped them back together, and then fanned them out again. He cut the deck one way and then another. He shuffled and re-shuffled the pack until there wasn't a card in the entire deck that he hadn't run through his fingers at least ten times. He tapped his foot restlessly and fidgeted in the chair.

He would kill for a cigarette and at the same time the thought of nicotine nauseated him.

He couldn't catch a decent breath or get comfortable. There was a pounding behind his eyes and only constant motion kept the cramps in his fingers at bay. Still none of that compared to the furore inside his mind.

His thoughts snapped and popped like static explosions; tumbling one thought after the other like the fall of his cards. He saw the whole of his plan dancing before his eyes one moment and he saw it collapse in a rain of blood and fire in the next.

Remy Lebeau knew what was happening because he'd been here before; he just didn't understand _how_ it could be happening.

Essex's meddling should have been permanent - he didn't understand how he could be losing control all over again. Mon dieu, it wasn't like he still had all his powers to lose control of, right?

Stuffing his cards back into his pocket he raised both his hands up to his eyes. He could see the fine, constant tremor running through them as he held his hands aloft. He gritted his teeth and curled his hands into fists.

A barb of pain, like a build up of lactic acid in his muscles, shot through his forearms as he clenched his fists. He tilted his head back against the back of the chair, eyes closed behind his shades. His neck felt achy and fragile, like his spine wasn't strong enough to support the weight of his head. He could feel his heart skipping beats as it raced harder sitting down than it would have if he'd just finished a sparring match with Wolverine.

Folding his shaking hands into his lap he tried to concentrate on his breathing, on various meditation and visualising techniques he'd half-picked up from other members of the X-men over the last three years. It didn't work; it never damn well worked. When he thought of a calm blue ocean all he really saw was the life teeming below the surface and all the potential power and motion of the tides.

Fuck he wished his brain came with an off-switch. He couldn't stop thinking…..and thinking led to doing and doing led to…..

…..well what he had planned could lead to all sorts of things, most of them would probably not be good for him in the long run.

He opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling of the departure lounge; he could see it all. The whole world was a wash of shifting colours, white and hot pink, vivid black shadow and shimmering reds. He could feel the ebb and flow of movement and activity all around him. It was a seething tide of potential; a swirling mass of energy just waiting to be pushed just that fraction of an itch more and then - _boom. _It would blow in a crescendo of actualised possibility.

He could make it happen; the catalyst at the very centre of it all. He had created all the links in the chain reaction. He could feel them brushing against his mind; so many possibilities, so many outcomes and consequences. Remy Lebeau could see them all playing out in his mind and the view enticed and dazzled in equal measure.

It was like atomic poker; or cosmic chess. He could see how each player would react to each new wager. He could anticipate every move in the game before it was made. He knew exactly where to place the pawns to get the best results; he knew how to hold his bluff and up the ante.

He was at the very centre of a maelstrom of possibility; it felt like he had his finger on the pulse of time itself. He could make it run backward if he wanted. He could make it end also.

It felt like he could do anything – make anything happen – if he just let go.

He scrubbed at the two days worth of stubble on his cheeks with the tingling palms of his hands. He was so exhausted he felt physically sick; he was so hyper-aware he could see through his eyelids.

It was the best high he'd ever experienced and it was the scariest bad trip he'd ever had. He wanted off this roller coaster once and for all.

Lord have mercy on his soul, but if he wanted, he could blow this entire airport right off the map, taking himself and everyone here with it when it blew. There would be nothing left when he was done; just a void in time and space aching to be filled.

He sat forward and cupped his face in his hands trying to breathe through the rising panic causing his chest to ache.

Mon dieu, but he wanted to do it. He wanted to reach out and make the atoms in the air dance. He wanted to watch them glow. He wanted to let go so badly he ached for it. He felt like it was what he was meant to do.

So many possibilities and so much chaos and motion and power; he could feel it all. He itched to make the chaos happen.

He could not stop; he could not stop. All those possibilities, all those potentialities; like a deck of cards falling through time and space he could do nothing but shuffle those potentials and keep adding new ingredients. He had to keep going, building up and up; creating new twists and new turns to his scheme. It was a compulsion; it was the side effect of his powers that he doubted even Essex understood.

He was the serpent in the garden; he was the agitator and the catalyst.

He could not stop what he had started and he could only hope and pray that someone _stopped him_ before the chaos he was about to unleash reached critical mass.

Fumbling with shaking fingers in his pocket Remy pulled his cell phone from his pocket and rubbed at his burning eyes until he could just about focus on the digits on the keypad. He tapped a message, an SOS by any other name, into the phone to the number he knew off by heart.

There was only one person he would trust in these circumstances; there was only one person he would ever willingly offer his life to. He smiled caustically, good thing she wanted him dead to begin with, non?

* * *

'Okay people, now we're all here,' Scott cleared his throat as Jean walked into the parlour. He pulled out a chair in the centre of the room for her. 'I'll hand things over to Phoenix.' Jean winced but took the 'hot seat' anyway.

_Coward,_ she sent the grouchy message through the link as Scott rather gratefully sat down in a dining room chair brought in for the meeting that he'd pushed up against the wall in the corner.

Scott nodded with a faint smile just for her, _Damn straight; it's nice not to have to deliver bad news for once._

Jean pouted but then turned her attention to the rest of the room. She met everyone's eyes in turn. First was Sam; Cannonball would likely be least affected by the news as he barely knew Gambit. Joseph hovering between the sofa and the door was broadcasting anxiety and concern for Rogue loudly without meaning too. He could be a problem.

Bobby was a neutral element; he wasn't a friend of Gambit's but he wasn't likely to go off half cocked either. Ororo, settled neatly on the three seater sofa with Bobby and Warren bracketing her in on either side, was clearly tense. Scott had already told Ororo most of it, Jean knew, and she could plainly see Ororo was bracing herself for more bad news.

Warren was a seething bundle of contradictory emotions already; on the one hand he wanted to be open-minded, on the other hand Betsy was still unconscious in the medlab and he had never liked Gambit to begin with. Bishop, sitting uncomfortably in one of the armchairs, watched them all impassively.

Jean had always harboured the feeling that despite all his actions and words to the contrary, Bishop was as much on Gambit's side as Ororo. She couldn't explain it, but more than anything else, Bishop most often projected a frustrated protectiveness towards Gambit. It didn't make much sense but Jean believed in the integrity of the emotion all the same.

Her gaze lingered on Logan last; he nodded to her where he straddled a high backed dining chair in the centre of the room. Logan's reaction could make or break this delicate balance. In some ways he and Gambit were birds of a feather; the similarities between them almost perfectly balanced by their differences. Conversely Logan despised traitors; if he could not rationalise sensibly what Jean had to say, how could she expect the rest of the people here to be objective?

_Logan, please, I'm depending on your support._

He quirked a grizzled eyebrow, _Just start talking darling - that's all you can do._

She smiled dryly; trust Logan to manage to give support without offering false reassurances. She took a deep breath.

'There's no delicate way of saying this, so I'm just going to say it.'

She started glancing back at Scott, who was staying at her back in the corner partly because he wanted the team to defer to her and not him. Still his presence at her back, and the powerful sense of all his attention focused on her, was a comfort. His silent support fortified her.

Jean turned back to the rest of the team but focused her eyes on Logan and Warren primarily as she began, 'You all know that Gambit has always been unwilling to share his past with any of us.'

Her gaze swept over everyone in the room and she felt the sharpening of attention as everyone in the room realised that finally, they might discover the truth about the Cajun.

'What you might not know is that Charles managed to convince Gambit to confide in him; after a _lot_ of intensive work building Gambit's trust. About a year ago Charles confided in me some of what Gambit had told him.'

She felt surprise fill the room, partly in response to the notion that Gambit had confided in anyone and partly to the fact that Jean had been keeping secrets. She was vaguely amused by that, as a telepath she kept a trove of secrets that grew by the day, still she had a reputation for honesty that she wasn't sure was completely deserved.

'Charles only did this because he felt it was important that at least one other psi be aware of -' Jean hesitated, 'Well I suppose to be aware of Gambit, really.'

She flapped a hand well aware of how inadequate that statement was. Warren shifted on the couch. 'Aware of Gambit; what does that mean?'

Jean scraped a hand through her hair. She hated that the right words would not come to her. She could read thoughts as easily as words off a page but became tongue-tied when she had to address people, event those she had known for years. She tried again, 'Aware of his shields and what the real purpose behind them was, mostly.'

She shrugged growing more confident with each word, 'However I think Charles really wanted someone Gambit did not feel threatened by to know some of what he'd been through - I suppose he thought I could run interference with the rest of the team, without Gambit knowing what I knew.'

The sudden surge of surprise and interest through the room made her head spin momentarily and she instinctively reached out with her mind for the comfort and solidity of her husband's presence.

_You're doing fine Redd._

'What you have to understand, before I say anything more,' Jean said urgently, 'Is that Charles absolutely supported Gambit's place in this mansion and on the team.' She licked her lips, somehow she knew that her next words would not go down well, 'Charles told me that Gambit was someone who made him believe the dream was possible.'

'Why?' This time it was Bobby who spoke, 'I mean, I'm not saying anything against the guy, but I wouldn't exactly make him my poster boy for mutant rights. He's…..'

Bobby wet his lips carefully not looking at Ororo as he spoke, 'Well he's not the sort of person the rest of the human race is going to put a lot of faith in – I mean not on first, or y'know, even _fortieth,_ impressions. Hell he's lived here for three years and most of the time he acts like he'd soon as cut our throats as watch our backs.'

'Robert!' Ororo admonished.

He shrugged apologetically but did not retract his statement under the force of Ororo's affronted gaze.

'He's not sort of person to put his life on the line for a better tomorrow?' Jean smiled faintly, 'I said almost exactly the same thing when he told me, Bobby.'

'Then what did the professor mean?' This time Warren stepped in, 'The man's a barely reformed criminal with little regard for authority of any sort, and he probably has a past that makes Wolverine look lily-white. Why would Charles hold Gambit in higher esteem than….'

'You?' Jean caught the end of the thought that Warren wouldn't say, 'Or even me?' she shook her head sadly.

'I won't pretend I fully agree with Charles on this, but the reason he gave was the exact same reasons you and Bobby gave for not respecting Gambit.' She eyed the two men seriously.

'He _was_ a thief who made a good living in crime and then gave it all up to fight for a dream he found hard to believe.' Jean's words quickened as she warmed to her narrative. 'Gambit is a loner who has an almost pathological fear of trusting others yet nevertheless voluntarily came to live with a group of total strangers.'

She met each gaze in turn, 'Charles' argument was that if someone like Gambit, with his past and problems, can come to understand, and believe, and _fight_ for the Dream, then so can the rest of the population with time.'

She shook her head, vibrant red hair falling around her shoulders as her eyes almost flashed with conviction, 'Charles failed with Sabretooth because Victor Creed didn't want to become something better; Gambit does. Charles, the man we all knew before Onslaught, would never give up on a mutant who genuinely wanted to reform and was prepared to work to do that.'

Jean tilted her chin, 'There are a number of us here today who came from bad backgrounds. Gambit, Rogue, Logan,' she paused and met her best friend's eyes smiling, 'And even Ororo to a lesser extent; all have pasts that are less than rosy. Charles valued their commitment because it was so much harder for them to make it then for me, say, with my middle class picket fence upbringing.'

Her smile became caustic. She knew that in this group her happy, loving family upbringing was the exception not the rule.

Logan stirred, 'There a reason yer brought up Creed in the same breath as the Cajun, Jeannie?'

He cocked his head to the side and she saw his nostrils flare; scenting the air for the truth. In his own way Logan and his enhanced senses was as keen as a telepath when it came to picking up on hidden truths.

She smiled crookedly, 'Yes Logan, I should have known you'd pick up on that.'

'Gumbo's got a past with Creed; this about him?' Logan asked curiously.

Jean shook her head, 'No, not that I'm aware. It was more the comparison I wanted to draw attention to.'

She chewed her lip, of course knowing Gambit's background with Sinister it was not impossible that Creed, as a Marauder, had a further connection to Gambit that way. At that moment Jean almost wished Charles had told her the whole truth about Gambit's time with Sinister; something more than heavy hints of violence and betrayal.

'Yer better just come out with it, darling,' Logan stated for the rest of the team as she hesitated, 'Ain't gonna make it easier if yer sugar coat. It's damned clear the Cajun's got blood on his hands somewhere down the line.'

Murmurs of agreement rose from various places around the room; even Ororo nodded in agreement, though she seemed more saddened and worried than disapproving. Jean took a breath and steadied herself; then she just came out with it in one long exhale.

'Gambit has a connection to Sinister; at some point in time, he was forced to work for the man after he lost control of his mutant powers.'

Silence crashed through the parlour even as she heard the shock in their thoughts screaming at her. Jean looked up anxiously wondering who would break first.

'Fuck,' Bobby exclaimed looking around the faces in the room, 'I didn't see that one coming.'

Jean waited but no one else said anything. She could feel the intensity of their focus on her, individually and as a group, like pin-point lasers burning into her skin.

'What kind o' work darlin'?' Logan asked as at the same time Scott spoke from his place at the back of the room.

'I thought you said Gambit was a prisoner of Sinister?'

Jean looked from one man to the other and ripped a patch of skin from her bottom lip as she tried to clarify the situation.

'He was Scott.' She looked at the shocked, tense faces around the room.

'Charles refused to tell me the details, but what he said was that Sinister approached Gambit in the guise of a man called Essex and offered him money in exchange for a variety of services. Gambit refused him, and in fact, went into hiding to avoid him. A few months later Gambit was severely hurt when his mutant powers slipped from his control.'

'Goddess no….' Ororo interrupted as she anticipated the next part of the story. Jean met her best friend's eyes and nodded.

'Sinister waited until Gambit couldn't fight and took him. According to the professor Sinister then performed surgery on Gambit, the nature of which Hank's still trying to figure out.' She flapped her hands once more as she chose her words with care.

'Basically whatever Sinister did brought Gambit's powers down to the level we've all seen. Once Gambit regained consciousness Sinister informed him that he 'owed' him for saving his life and that he had to work off the debt.'

Logan growled as Ororo lowered her head letting the longer strands of her hair shield her expression. Bobby reached out and awkwardly patted her shoulder. 'Hey, look, he obviously got away, so it can't be that bad.'

Bobby looked up at Jean, 'Right? He did get away, didn't he?'

'He didn't get away Bobby,' Jean said softly. She swallowed hard, 'Charles told me Gambit was, basically, Sinister's slave for most of a year. When Gambit initially refused Sinister again after the surgery he was subjected to physical and psychological torture until he submitted.'

Ororo looked up at that eyes sharp with unshed tears, 'Remy is…..defiant by nature; he would not submit lightly.'

'Everybody breaks darlin',' Logan said, gravelly voice hoarse and rough as always yet strangely comforting, 'Anyone says different is lyin'.'

He looked straight at Jean, 'I know some of the names the Cajun used to work under. He had a rep for being good fer the money and fer bein' prepared to take jobs most Guild trained thieves wouldn't.'

He quirked his brows expressively, 'From what I heard he was more black op jobs than straight thievin'; mercenary more'n a thief, truth told.' Logan shrugged and there was no judgement in the gesture, 'Figure I can guess some of the shit a bastard like Sinister would want him to do.'

Jean shook her head vigorously, 'I don't know what he did for him Logan; Charles was adamant that the details shouldn't be known by anyone on the team unless Gambit was prepared to tell us himself. All he would tell me was that whatever Gambit was forced to do for Sinister, it shattered his mind.'

'Shattered his mind?' Warren frowned, 'What does that mean Jean? I mean the man was a criminal before Sinister found him; why would he care who he worked for?'

Ororo's head snapped up and she glared at Warren, 'There is honour among thieves. Even a criminal is still a person, Warren, a person with their own moral code and their reasons for doing what they do.'

Warren raised his hands in surrender, 'Fine, alright. But I still stand by the assertion that a thief isn't going to be as fussy morally as someone who doesn't make a living stealing from other people.' He said hotly.

'Warren, Ororo - enough.' Scott snapped from the back of the room and both looked at him and then to Jean. Jean waited until they had control of their anger.

'Warren regardless of whether Gambit has morals or not, Charles told me that when he escaped Sinister the trauma of what he had been through broke his mind. He had a complete emotional breakdown – he was suicidal and spent months tied to a bed with Morphine pumped into his veins to keep him docile. What Sinister did nearly destroyed him from the inside out.'

In the heavy silence that followed Jean saw Logan nodding to himself, 'Figures; Gumbo ain't been right in the head since he pitched up here.' He winked at her, 'I could smell it. There was always something fishy about him – like his reactions were off kilter.'

Jean nodded slowly, 'Charles told me that Gambit's shields aren't there to keep people from reading him – or at least that isn't the primary function.' She chewed her lip and met Warren's eyes dead on.

'His shields, the same shields Betsy _shattered_, were there to protect his psyche while he healed. They were a scaffold around his mind as he tried to recover from what was done to him.'

Warren couldn't hold her eyes and looked away, 'I didn't know anything about that.' He said quietly, 'I didn't know Betsy was going to try and breach his shields again.'

Jean blinked, 'Again?' her heart thudded in her chest. All eyes in the room fixed on Warren who shrugged his shoulders sheepishly making his furled wings twitch and rustle.

'After Gambit woke from the coma,' he began clearly reluctant, 'Betsy and I were the first to find him. Betsy told me she sensed some sort of darkness in his thoughts and so she scanned him while he was unconscious.' He looked up defensively, 'She said that he _caught _her in there anyway; she didn't find anything.'

Jean pressed her hand to her mouth as Ororo turned on Warren once more, 'She should not have done such a thing in the first place.' The words carried the hiss of a biting hail storm, 'I can barely believe Psylocke would violate another team member's mind, and now I find she has done so to Remy _twice_.'

Ororo's blue eyes blazed in her face, pupils constricted to thin lines of black as she looked to Scott.

'There must be some manner of redress for this; Betsy should not have done this and Remy would have been within rights to demand censure when it first occurred.'

'You can't be serious?' Warren turned on Ororo, 'For God's sake you just heard what Jean said. The man's crazy and he used to work for Sinister; Betsy was totally justified in what she did.'

Logan growled, baring teeth at Warren. Bobby buried his face in his hands, 'Oh, jeez, War, I can't believe you just said that.' He groaned.

'This is exactly what I expected - Rogue has been tortured by this man's shame for months!' Joseph spoke for the first time, indignation rife in his tone.

'Ah reckon y'all can't blame a man for what he got forced ta do….' Sam began awkwardly.

'I have heard the name Essex before; the Witness once used the name as an alias….could it be…?' Bishop's bass rumble was felt rather than heard, his voice was so low in thought.

The rest of the room exploded into angry noise and answerless questions; the shouts and outrage of their thoughts slammed against Jean's shields like hammering fists. She leapt from the chair.

'_Shut up_ – all of you just shut the hell up!'

Everyone in the room stared at her in open mouthed shock as Jean sucked in a furious breath of air. Logan snickered and she glared daggers at him. 'Just can it, all of you.'

She shook her head hair lashing over her shoulders, 'Don't you get it? Gambit's shields were his last line of defence _against_ Sinister - and now he's gone, Sinister is out there, and Gambit's shields are in tatters.'

She glared at everyone in the room, 'He's incredibly vulnerable right now and the man who shattered his mind once is most likely after him again.'

She was disgusted at the fact that she even had to say it; what had happened to this team? She tried to swallow the hot searing wave of her anger as her fists curled tightly at her sides.

'Whatever Gambit used to be, and no matter what he might have done willingly or unwillingly – right now he is an X-man _and he needs us_.' She closed her eyes and felt Scott's hands land supportively on her shoulders from behind. She let herself lean against his chest.

'That is the only thing that really matters.'

She said and prayed with all her soul that that was true, even as she squirmed inside at being forced to further deceive the X-men about what Charles had really told her.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Fifteen: Distraction**

_A/N: Hello all, a couple of people have suggested this story is getting too wordy and there is not enough action. All I can say is I like a slow burn to my action scenes, but hopefully this chapter will tide the action junkies over until I'm ready to really hit top gear. ;)_

* * *

Belladonna Boudreaux frowned at the message that blinked into life on her cell phone screen. Precious few knew her number; assassins didn't tend to encourage sociality.

_He_ certainly should not have her number – but then again what he shouldn't have, or do, or want, was a temptation too much for him to resist.

She could kill him for the presumption; instead she merely re-read the message.

_Belle chere - how much am I worth? _

That question could only mean one thing, at least for a woman in her vocation. She tapped her mauve painted nails against the screen of her phone as she considered what to do. She still hated him, but that was neither here nor there. Love him, hate him, the difference was so small it wasn't worth the distinction between the two. She knew that he understood that. She knew he felt the same way.

She tapped in a response.

_Depends - are you going to fight?_

Belladonna replaced the cell phone on the glass coffee table and reached for her coffee mug and clicked her fingers over the bottom of the couch when her Siamese cat Salome sauntered into the lounge. The blue eyed arrogant creature ignored her and settled on the window seat, upsetting the soft gauzy window hangings. Belle rolled her eyes and looked back at her phone as it bleeped at her.

_Killed Grey Crow today – quit the X-men; working with Creed again. Yeah, I'm going to fight._

Belle's eyebrows arched. She tapped furiously on the phone's keypad. Salome jumped down from her perch to settle on the couch arm. Absently Belle scratched the top of the cat's elegant head.

_My, my busy boy; tell me you're done with the Mississippi witch and I'll give you a discount. _

Belle waited and within forty-five seconds her cell rang. She picked up but said nothing.

'I'm through with the Mississippi witch. So how much am I worth?' he asked her without preamble in perfect Parisian French.

Belle smiled; she couldn't help it. His voice had always had that effect on her; especially over the crack and pop of a bad cell phone line. The static interference gave his rough silk rumble an age and depth that youth denied him in person.

'How much are you worth?' Belladonna made a show of considering that question as she carefully controlled each one of her almost involuntary reactions to his voice.

Swiftly and with the benefit of years of experience she analysed the timber of his voice. He sounded tired and just a little scatty. She could detect the fading edge of an adrenaline high. He'd either just won a fight, pulled off a complex con, gotten laid or, as he said, killed someone. Nothing else could create that tremble in his breathing; part excitement, part encroaching shock.

So typically Remy; up to no good and caught between he thrill and the guilt.

It would be eight years this summer since their wedding day and two years since she'd had any contact with him. Of course that 'contact' hadn't been particularly happy. She'd tried to kill him and his Mississippi whore. Belladonna winced internally. She'd struggled over the last two years to re-organise all the memories and feelings Rogue had stolen from her. It was still a jumble but the rage had faded to a dull ache.

Still even with two years to think things over; two years to hate him violently, miss him horribly, forgive him and curse him all over again for moving on without her and, more than anything, for daring to _replace_ her, she found her heart racing and her mouth going dry to hear his voice again.

'A million, maybe.'

Finally she answered his question once she deemed herself ready and imagined he was plenty rattled by her delaying tactics. In her voice was the sense of hard won peace she had gained in all these years without him. She'd kill him in an instant if the price was right, but then she would kill anyone for the right price, so that didn't really count. What she would not do was further demean herself or him with pointless hatred.

She thought as she spoke, 'You're irritating enough on your own; so I reckon it's a sellers market for your hide. Add in the X-men thing, and lord knows enough people hate the X-men, and I'd say a million was a good price.'

'You think?' he paused, 'That's actually a little disappointing. You sure you're not being too conservative? I'm not that easy to kill and I'm naturally gifted when it comes to pissing folks off.'

Bella grinned as Salome flopped into her lap and began purring loudly, 'A million; not a dollar more not a dollar less.' She said firmly. 'You should have stayed in the business cher. A thief is worth more than an X-man any day.'

He sighed over the crackling line and the sound shivered against her ear, 'I hear you Belle; I hear you.'

'I charge half up front and half on completion of the job.' She added just for fun.

'I know.' He scoffed then clucked his tongue, 'Going to have to pay you upfront all the way, on account of the fact that I'm going to be dead when you finish - makes it difficult to pay you what you owed, no?'

Belle's hands stilled in the short milky fur of Salome's underbelly, 'You want to commission me to kill you?' she shook her head, 'I thought you were asking hypothetically.'

'I don't do hypothetical, Belle; don't have the brains for it. Non, I got some plans; got to take some risks that might not pan out. I want to know that there's someone I trust in the wings to make sure if I fail it won't get anyone else hurt.'

'The red diamond bastard - this is about that monster isn't it?'

Everyone in the higher echelons of the two Guilds knew, in some way or the other, that Jean-Luc's mutie foundling had got himself involved with a hell of a mess in New York City just over five years ago. They knew that people had died and that Remy had had a hand in that.

Belladonna, of course, knew the whole story; she'd blackmailed Jean-Luc for every detail in return for hiding the fact that, breaking every rule of Remy's banishment, Jean-Luc and Henri had gone to New York to rescue him. She still remembered how much it had cost her to watch them go and not go with them.

'It's always about him, Belle.' Remy sighed over the phone snapping her attention back to the present, 'Bella if I send something to you, will you guard it for me? Hell I don't even care if you destroy the damn thing - I just don't want anyone getting a-hold of it.'

Belle chewed on this and considered. Her first instinct was to agree to whatever he asked of her. This was her old playmate, her confidant, and her best friend after all. The intervening years had done nothing to diminish that bedrock fact. In fact beyond all the hurts and the failures in both their lives no one had quite managed to steal that away from them. Not even the Mississippi slag had managed that; though she'd given it her all.

'I'm not a storage unit, cher. What's so important that you'd leave it with your poor ex-wife, hmm?' it was petulant, yes, but Remy deserved it.

'_Ex_-wife?' she heard the surprise in his voice and the faint amusement, 'That's interesting chere; I sure don't remember signing any divorce papers.'

Belle sighed, 'Details; my pride prefers the title ex-wife to the alternative. I'm sick of being your poor abandoned bride.'

There was a pause on the other end of the line. Belle smiled caustically; how would he react? Would he ignore the implication, deny it, or try and apologise for the fact that he had lived and loved without her?

'Whatever Belle; you can bitch over my dead body.' He said and she heard the faint hint of annoyance and impatience in his tone. Trust her husband to confound her expectations.

'Am I wasting my time, chere?' he asked sharply, 'You going to be a professional or you going to pretend you hate me; because, I'll say this now for the record, I don't have the time for it. Hell I'm warning you now, Belle, the week I'm having, I'm not about to listen to anymore of that shit from _anyone_.'

Belladonna laughed. She hadn't heard Remy this catty in years. Of course she hadn't spoken to him in years either, but that didn't mean she didn't spy on her husband on a regularly basis. She'd been appalled at how whipped and brow-beaten he'd become living up in Westchester. The boy she had known would never have been so meek.

'Alright cher, cage your inner bitch, yes? It was a joke.' She grinned as she heard the disgusted sound he made on the other end of the line.

He wouldn't hang up of course; not when he needed something from her. Belladonna savoured the power she had over him in this exchange and let him stew for a moment of silence over the buzzing line.

'What is it you want me to hold for you?'

She heard Remy blow out a deep breath and imagined the accompanying gesture he always made when he was annoyed and trying to repress it. She imagined the roll of his shoulders and the flexing of those long fingers; working out the physical expression of his aggression.

'It's a vial, not a big thing.' He said carefully.

'What's in the vial?' Belladonna knew her husband's game. In level voice she posed the question he would either have to lie to avoid or answer truthfully – and she would know if he lied. There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

Belladonna took the time it took Remy to decide how to answer her to catalogue the sounds she could hear in the background on Remy's end of the line. Faintly she could detect the low murmur of talking, perhaps an intercom system, and the indistinct sounds of activity that suggested he was in a populated area. She caught a fragment of what was being said over the intercom announcement: an airport. He was in an airport.

'It's what he took from me, Belle. Essex; it's what the man took from my head to make me what I am. I need you to keep it for me.'

Belle tried to think of something to say and found there was nothing suitable to say at all. Save of course what he wanted to hear. 'Send it, or tell me where to find it, and I'll have someone pick it up.'

Relief infused every syllable of his words, 'Thank you, Belle.'

She could visualise the naked relief upon his features. She imagined the brush of his dark lashes against his cheeks as he closed his eyes and bowed his head. She wondered if he'd bothered to shave today?

'You still got people watching me, yes? Know you been spying on me and Rogue since forever.' Remy spoke up. Belladonna curled her lip at mention of the Mississippi harlot.

'Please, I'm eating breakfast, cher. Don't speak that name while I'm eating.'

Remy snorted sourly, 'Give it a rest, Belle, and answer the question; you got bodies watching me or no?'

Belle didn't try to deny it; why would she? Remy was still her husband, after all. His whereabouts and his actions were still her business. 'I do, but obviously they're not up to the task; I wasn't informed you'd quit the X-men.'

'It was sudden,' she could almost hear his casual shrug, 'I just touched down in Chicago – I'm headed for St Louis.' He gave her the details of how he intended to get to Missouri. 'You want my commission then you keep some bodies on me, no; only got one provision.'

'What's that?' Belladonna had already written down the details he had given her and noted down the names of two Guild members near the city of St. Louis she thought would be up to the challenge of tailing her husband.

'Don't care who you have watching me, Bella, know they be quality if they come from you, but they don't get to take the shot. The only one who gets to take my life is you, Belle. I only trust you.'

Belle grew still. Sensing her master's sudden sky-rocketing pulse Salome leapt off her lap, claws extended. The cat left before things could grow even more tense. Belle concentrated on breathing calmly.

Remy was still talking, 'If I fail and the devil takes me; I want you there to kill me. I'm counting on you Belle.'

He hung up and there was nothing but buzzing static on the other end of the line. Belladonna sat like a statue in her sumptuously tasteful lounge and then, calmly and precisely, she threw her cell phone across the room where it shattered against the wall.

* * *

St Louis Missouri was not his favourite place in the world, or even in these here United States, but at least it wasn't Seattle. Mon dieu, did he ever hate Seattle.

Remy Lebeau's lips contorted into a moue of distaste around the cigarette he was greedily sucking on at the mere thought of the former grunge capital of the world. He tapped the excess ash off his cigarette and surveyed his surroundings like a vagabond king.

The dingy alley at the back of a collection of ramshackle warehouses lining the river front was not the most hospitable place he'd ever taken up residence in, but it was bon for now. Sitting on an upturned metal drum he nodded casually to the trio of old bums huddled around a fire in another drum. They met his red glowing eyes in turn and each gave up any thought of trying to chase him off their turf.

Stubbing out the cigarette he rubbed at his eyes; he was still sleep deprived and he hadn't eaten in so long his stomach had knotted into an empty lump pressed against his spine. Absently his mind drifted to Lorna and Creed who were due to join him in the city sometime next evening, if not before.

He didn't relish telling Lorna about his latest plan; somehow he didn't think she'd be so pleased to see who he'd tapped to help them for this next part of their grand rebellion. C'est le vie, might do the pair of them some good, no? Maybe being renegades together be just what they need to sort their problems out, oui? Of course he personally thought Lorna could do better, but what did he know, eh?

His relationship track record wasn't all that great neither; ah oui, he knew how to pick 'em. Remy smirked humourlessly, more grimace than amusement. On the rebound from an assassin he picks up with an ex-terrorist and part-time stalker with even more crippling emotional issues than he had. Non, he really couldn't cast any aspersions against Lorna's taste in lovers; especially not when the jeune Summers could be tres, tres useful to him right now.

Remy snickered, the three bums peered at him anxiously and then decided that it was better to freeze their collective asses off further down the alley then stay within eyeshot of the crazy red eyed man laughing at nothing. Remy watched them go with dry amusement. Deadbeat failures at life they may be, but those three drifters had more sense than most.

Remy was in a dangerous mood; the sort of mood that precipitated things blowing up.

Bringing up one knee to his chest so his booted foot rested on the top of the drum, he wrapped an arm around that leg and propped his chin on his knee. In his free hand he flipped the ace of spades through his fingers with absent minded dexterity.

Over his head night was shading into day; the darkness giving way to strains of grey and mauve in the pre-dawn sky. Pocketing the card he pulled free Henri's pocketwatch; the tarnished gold time piece was the very same heirloom he had tried to steal from his foster-brother's dresser when he'd been ten years old. He'd inherited it from Henri after his brother's death. The dent in the gold plated lid was from the arrow that had killed his brother on Xavier's front lawn just over two years ago.

He flipped the lid open; the hands on the clock did not turn. The stupid thing hadn't worked since the arrow stopped his brother's time altogether. Superstitious and sentimental as Remy often was he had never thought to have the thing fixed.

It wasn't like he needed to fix it anyhow. Non, Henri's clock told him what time it was already. Too damn late; that's what time it was.

C'est la vie, best get this party started. Digging into an inner pocket of his trench coat he felt around in the voluminous depths for his , the very same he'd tried to return to Cyclops only to have the man give it back to him the next day. He'd known it was still in his pocket when he bolted from the mansion because he'd made sure it was.

Juggling the thing from hand to hand Remy considered a moment before snapping open the back of the badge and replacing the component he'd removed earlier to prevent the X-men using Cerebro to track him down. If he'd guessed right, the oh so conscientious Jean Grey had spilled the beans on him and Sinister by now.

Remy slipped off the drum and clicked the comm. badge onto the inner lapel of his trench coat. He whistled to himself, cheerfully off-tune, as he walked past the three bums on his way back to what passed for civilisation around here.

He'd known of course that le professeur would tell his Girl Friday, Grey, most of what Remy had told him, which was why he'd only told Charles what the man wanted to hear to begin with. Let the X-men think he was a poor, abused victim for a time – mon dieu it would make a nice change to get some after-the-fact sympathy.

Hell, it might even be true, non? It's not like he'd asked Essex to experiment on him and torture him before manipulating him into performing the worst betrayal of his life; right?

'C'mon mes amis; come on an' rescue de poor fucked up Cajun. It weren' his fault -de devil made him do it.'

Remy Lebeau stopped at the drop off site where he'd dumped his duffel bag and his recently purchased provisions. He changed in the shadow of the dumpster at the back of the alley between a dry-cleaners and a Chinese take-out into his working gear and added a few strategic extras to his trench coat just in case. He then stowed the duffle bag behind the large metal dumpster in the alley once again.

Eventually as the first touches of dawn gold stroked over the sky he came to his destination. The campaign banners fluttered from flagpoles above his head and the ivy creeping over the creamy brick townhouse gave the place an air of respectability it did not deserve.

Remy flexed his fingers as he shivered with anticipation; it had been so long since he'd come close to a feeling like this. Lord God had he missed it.

He paused for a moment to study one of the advertisement posters in the window. He grinned despite himself at the lovingly stylised colour image of a blood drooling, clawed and wild eyed infant playing in the blood of a group of wonderfully wholesome blue-eyed and blonde grade schoolers.

_Do you want this in your child's school? _The tag line ran under the picture with further details in favour of mandatory genetic screening for all school aged kids. The implication being that any kid showing positive for the X-factor gene was to be expelled from mainstream schooling at the very least - and probably shot in a back-alley or neutered, Remy added snidely, but that didn't fit in the margins of the poster.

Remy quirked his eyebrows at the image of the rabid kid once more. He smiled slyly; looked like the esteemed Senator was letting his daddy issues colour his political bigotry some. The boy in the picture looked like a baby Sabretooth.

Graydon Creed had failed in his bid to become a presidential candidate last year but instead of shutting the man up he'd just become more determined. He now preached mindless hate twenty-four/seven to anyone stupid enough to listen. Remy shrugged, eh, everyone needed a hobby, oui?

Remy for instance had his own ways of relaxing. Breaking and entering was just one of those but it remained an enduring favourite. With nothing more than the use of a cheap lockpick he had let himself into Creed's St. Louis Friends of Humanity headquarters.

He took his time looking around; hell, when was he likely to come by again, right?

After a fifteen minute thorough search he found himself vaguely disappointed. He'd thought bigot central would be more interesting than this. Instead of a cache of weaponry, mutant suppressant devices or a cadre of evil henchmen waiting in the cupboard under the stairs all he found was unused posters, pins and flyers from the presidential campaign and stationary supplies. It was all very pedestrian and tres, tres anti-climatic, but, Remy thought brightening, this was Missouri, maybe the New York HQ was more interesting?

'Never mind, figure I can make dis place more int'restin', non?'

Pulling out one of his many packs of cards and the bright yellow adhesive squares he'd snitched from the stationary cupboard he stuck the card to the wall in the hallway. Whistling under his breath he continued through the building placing cards on the walls and furnishings, stopping now and again to disengage a CCTV camera.

When he had placed all fifty-two cards of the deck around the building he left quietly the way he'd come in and lit a cigarette on the front stoop. It was still dead on the streets, which was good, as the moon and stars faded in the gold and violet streaked early morning. Creed's Friends of Humanity holed up in a less than ideal, down on its heel part of town. The two buildings next door were unoccupied Remy had made sure of that during in his recon of the building.

Grinning to himself Remy counted down the seconds, all fifty-two of them as he moved confidently but swiftly down the street away from the FoH headquarters. Fifty-three seconds later the building blew sky high as fifty-two cards, rigged with the charge of a small incendiary, went up one after another in a gorgeous chain reaction.

Remy watched the debris litter the street and winced a little when the windows of a florist shop across the street and three doors down were blown out……ah, well, they were insured….probably. The fireball reached fifty feet into the air and pieces of brick and mortar were thrown at least as far in all directions.

'Well dat oughta do it,' he grinned, 'I just never fail to impress mysel'.'

Turning his back after another few minutes of watching his own handiwork burn, Remy found himself in all new trouble. The purple clad, bald headed human looking creature was almost nose to nose with him when he turned around and Remy found his personal space further invaded by the press of a plasma cannon shoved into his chest.

'Halt mutant.' The Prime Sentinel ordered him in dead tones.

'Consider me halted, homme,' Remy smiled at the creature. He'd heard about this new breed of Sentinel profligated by Operation Zero Tolerance but had never seen one in the flesh until now.

'Under the edicts of my programming and Operation Zero Tolerance you will be taken to a processing and detection centre. Resistance will result in your death.' The creature intoned still pressing its plasma cannon hand into Remy's rib cage.

Remy Lebeau arched an eyebrow, 'Dat's what you t'ink.'

He looked down at the cannon appendage forced into his chest. The Sentinel followed his gaze. The cannon and the arm it was attached to were already glowing shimmering fuchsia.

Remy smiled savagely, 'Oh m'sieur Sentinel, dis just ain't gon be your day.'

He back flipped out of the way as the Prime Sentinel's arm exploded. This was going to be fun!

* * *

Deep in the subterranean communications room of the X-men's Westchester mansion, unobserved and unheeded, Cerebro received, coded, and played an emergency message across the huge TV screen.

Squuuuuckkk……Lops, Ororo, this is Forge. If anyone is there please respond…damn it! Alright fine; the date of this transmissions origin is 23rd March 2009. Late last night, 22nd March, the members of X-Factor were attacked within our own base. I have only just managed to get communications and power back up and running. I'll be brief; Sabretooth and Polaris are missing. Our security is shot to hell and I've decided to abandon Falls Edge.'

Schisssssss-rakkkkkkk …….ucking thing! There that should clear the feed. Cyclops, Ororo, in case the feed should break again; I have reason to believe that somehow, by unknown means, Polaris has once again fallen under the influence of the entity known as Malice. Acting under that influence she attacked the rest of us and absconded with Creed at approximately 11:15pm on the 22nd March. Under the circumstances X-Factor is severely limited in our ability to track either Polaris or Sabretooth - and if this is an act of aggression by the Marauders or Sinister the X-men are better able to handle it anyway.'

Hissssssscracccccccc…….damn this piece of crap; Cyclops, Ororo, or anyone picking up this transmission - I'll try and send a transmission from our new base as soon as we are situated. If I or what's left of X-Factor can help in anyway just let us know. Forge out.'

The screen blanked out. Cerebro set up the standard warning light on the control panel so that whomsoever next entered the chamber would see that there was a transmission waiting. Then, with quiet self-sufficiency, Cerebro ran a self-diagnostic programme to ascertain the reason why an emergency message had taken over twenty-four hours to reach the mansion.

All this went on without any living creature noticing - or at least any living creature currently in the mansion.

* * *

The plasma blast seared through the early morning quiet and blasted a hole through a stunted apple tree in an abandoned backyard. The tree fell over with an almighty groan.

Remy Lebeau touched down on the ground, having just back flipped fifteen feet in the air to avoid instant incineration. He threw a laughing glance over his shoulder towards the dead tree.

'Tsk-tsk, m'sieur Sentinel; you need to get your sensors checked. Seems to me you can' tell de diff'rence 'tween a mutant an' a tree, eh?'

The Prime Sentinel was not one for witty banter. Rising in the air, the rocket boosters on its feet churning and superheating the air, the one-armed mutant killing machine surged at breakneck speed straight for Remy.

The mutant most commonly known as Gambit squatted into a crouch and watched the being come for him with a smirk on his face; at the last instant before impact he jumped to the side, pivoted smoothly and pulled his bo-staff from the depths of his trench coat.

'Olay!'

The Sentinel crashed into a wall and the mutant laughed, twirled his staff allowing his mutant power to surge through the metal and waited for the next charge. The sentinel fired a blast of a nameless energy beam out of the soles of its feet and Gambit was caught across the side by the scolding wave of energy. He flipped, rolled in midair and came down a good twenty feet away from the Sentinel.

'Touche, m'sieur,' Winded and still smarting from the blow, he threw a brace of cards in a scatter-shot arc to distract the sentinel. The small explosions blew holes in the concrete sidewalk and took out a trashcan outside a drugstore across the street. Gambit rose to his feet and swirled his glowing staff behind his back as he circled the Sentinel.

Would be matador and bull eyed each other. The sentinel's processing unit sending details of the mutant threat to central command via remote link. In turn Remy took his time to demonstrate his dexterity with his staff for the benefit of those watching beyond the Sentinel's machine eyes.

'Get a good luck, mes amis. Don' want you mistakin' me for any other charmin' scoundrels, non?' he murmured under his breath before he slammed the staff down hard into the asphalt of the road.

The end of the staff hit and the charge ran like a spark through a line of dynamite from the staff to the road. One by one every molecule in the asphalt caught hold of the charge and like links in a huge chain the road began to glow. A parked car was swallowed by the charge from the tires upward. A steam drain lid erupted out of the road like a hot pink discus.

The Sentinel rose in the air before the charge could reach out for it and swallow every dead cell and mechanical component in its frame whole. Remy Lebeau grinned triumphantly lurching upwards into the air. His trench coat dripped white-red power as his entire body was enveloped in a cocoon of shifting, wildly striating power.

His feet touched down on the glowing roof of the parked car, before he bounced off that platform to leapfrog off the wall of the florist store. Cart-wheeling in midair across the street he threw a brace of cards as the car at his back exploded taking most of the florist stores front façade with it.

The Sentinel avoided the cards which flew past it and detonated as they rained down onto the glowing veldt of the roadway. Aiming with its one good arm, the sentinel sent an immediate distress signal to all other Primes in the area. The Sentinel knew it would soon be rendered inoperative and so took the time to fully process and register the hostile mutant's characteristics. Bastion would want to know; this mutant would need to be eradicated.

Taking to higher ground should have been enough protection against a mutant who could not fly. Unfortunately for this prime sentinel Remy Lebeau had always considered gravity a suggestion and not a rule.

Diving down a narrow passageway between two buildings the Cajun mutant leapt atop a dumpster and used his momentum to frog-leap sideways up the walls of the buildings to the roof tops. With each leap he left a glowing patch in the brickwork. Below him the dumpster he had used to gain height exploded showering trash and refuse into the air. Most of that garbage then exploded into its component particles.

Reaching the flat roof of the building Gambit threw another brace of cards; his intention was not so much to hit the sentinel as to force the being closer.

'C'mon m'sieur Prime; t'ink of de property damage!' he threw another brace of five cards at the façade of the building across the street. Glass rained down onto the glowing molten river of the energy that had once been a road from the broken windows.

'You got to protect de humans from de evil mutants, non?' he called to the sentinel hovering just out of his reach and watching him with dead and lifeless computerised eyes. He met that inhuman gaze as below him the street moved closer to complete distruction.

'Here I am - come and get me.'

The Sentinel dived for him, its one remaining arm reaching out. Gambit shifted his footing and braced for impact. Every part of his being was pulsing with energy, from the tips of his hair to the tail of his coat; power bled from his very frame. His eyes blazed dark as burned coals in a face that rippled with the cold heat of a supernova star.

At the last instant just as the Sentinel fired Remy Lebeau reached out to grab hold of the Sentinel. The blast of energy took him in the chest; mingling with his own crackling powers he felt the blow like a splash of acid through his bones. It was a searing heat and fire that caused him to cry out in momentary pain but did not stop him. He was energy, he was the crash and tear of atoms, a plasma blast could not hurt him.

The sentinel collided with him; Gambit held on tightly, wrapping his arms and legs around the creature as they bounced across the rooftop. With each thump and roll, each impact with the rooftop Gambit's powers reacted and large chunks of concrete blew leaving a pitted trail of holes in the roof.

Eventually they came to a halt. On his back with the Sentinel bearing down on him, good hand squeezing down on his throat with inhuman strength, all Gambit could do was concentrate and keep his arms and legs locked around the being.

In moments the Sentinel was infused with the same blinding, simmering energy that had transformed, at least momentarily, Remy Lebeau from a creature of flesh and blood to one of pure, violent energy.

Gambit twisted, bucked and braced his legs underneath him, oxygen running out and vision fading as his throat was nearly crushed. He kicked with all his might, feet planted under the Sentinel's chest. Powered by the sheer kinetic potential Gambit had garnered around him the Sentinel flew backwards across the roof and crashed into the low retaining wall surrounding the roof edge.

Coughing blood Gambit caught his feet underneath him, gathered himself in a crouch and jack-knifed his arm back. The single card clenched between his glowing fingers tore free, slicing through the air straight for the still glowing Sentinel's head.

The head blew straight off the frighteningly human looking shoulders. The Sentinel's body toppled over the edge of the roof and fell to the glowing street below.

Remy Lebeau was already in motion; streaking across the roof top in the opposite direction he leapt off the roof at the exact same time as the Sentinel hit the power churning asphalt.

The resultant explosion, as one final explosive ingredient was added to the simmering stew of energy that had once been a city street, was felt for miles around. Everything in the street was reduced to nothing less than ionised powder for fifty feet.

The mutant responsible for all that destruction ran through the waking city like the hounds of hell were at his heels; he did not stop running for a very long time.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter Sixteen: Addition**

'…….Early reports state that the damage to property and the infrastructure is already in the millions. That there were no human casualties is nothing less than miraculous and due in part to the fact that the explosion occurred in the early hours of the morning. The St Louis Police Department are remaining tight-lipped, but it has been suggested by other sources that the damage is the result of a mutant terrorist……'

'H.E. double hockey sticks, would you look at that!'

Bobby Drake leaned forward in his seat around the War Room table peering at the large TV screen with the scrolling news reports of the St. Louis explosion. It looked like a meteor had crashed down in a quiet commercial neighbourhood in the city. The whole site was covered in a thin layer of ash and the road was a crater a good seventy feet deep.

On another screen Forge's emergency broadcast was playing on mute while Storm tried to hail the X-Factor leader on any one of a dozen emergency lines. From the thunderous expression on her face it was clear she had yet to have any luck.

Across the room Jean sat with the Cerebro helmet over her head trying to pick up any trace of either Gambit or Polaris. A glowing red holographic map of the United States floated above the table top next to her. Concentric circles like the ripples on the surface of a pond indicated either psionic or physical manifestation of mutant power. Unfortunately none of those appeared to match either Gambit's or Polaris' power signatures.

One final screen in the War Room was divided into a number of squares, and like the cover of the famous Beatles album, each square contained an image. In the top left Sinister leered out of the screen, his pallid visage cold and mocking. Top right was Sabretooth in all his repugnant glory. Bottom right was Lorna Dane, looking solemn and a little disconcerted in her mug shot. Bottom Left, was a new image of the sleeping Threnody and in the very centre of the screen, a causal link between all four, was Gambit with habitual smirk in place.

That was the image that stopped Rogue in her tracks as she stepped across the threshold into the War Room. She had woken up to a mansion in crisis and now found herself subject to a number of slightly hostile stares.

'Rogue – should you be out of the medlab?' Cyclops, who had been staring intently at the bi-sected screen of images, now turned to her, brows bunching low over his visor.

'Hank cleared me for duty,' Rogue cast her gaze downwards. She had just spent an hour with a very frazzled Beast trying to convince him that she was neither crazy nor inclined to start touching anyone for the hell of it. In the end she had the feeling Hank had let her go not so much because he thought she was mentally fit but because he already had too much on his plate without her adding to it.

Psylocke and Threnody had yet to regain consciousness after all; confounding all Hank's medical predictions. Rogue refused to feel guilty about that – or at least not much.

When Cyclops said nothing else Rogue took it as tacit permission to pretend everything was normal and she wasn't going to get serious censure for using her mutant powers aggressively on another mutant.

'So what's the situation?' she asked quietly sidling over to Bobby for moral support. Bobby looked from her to the TV screen showing aerial images of the devastation in St Louis and then back at her with a bemused expression.

'Well,' he drawled gently mocking her accent, 'Not a lot. Just that your ex-boyfriend seems to have gone apeshit crazy and blown up a FoH building and most of the street it was on for no obvious reason - oh and Lorna's gone Malice on us and run off with Sabretooth.' He grinned, 'Other than that you haven't really missed much.'

Rogue gave him a caustic smile in return, 'Well sugar, Ah'm relieved, here ah was thinkin' something real bad had happened.'

She rolled her own eyes and then looked over at the screen repeating Forge's message over and over as if the repetition would make events more explicable. Rogue chewed her lip twiddling a long lock of white hair that had fallen in her face around her finger.

'Y'all reckon there's a connection between Remy and Polaris?'

She raised her voice so any of the others in the room could hear her and decide to answer. She needed to know exactly what the rest of the team thought they knew. Cyclops turned to her then and even though she could not see his eyes she could feel the intensity of his gaze.

'Why don't you tell me?' he asked her in perhaps his most dangerous tone of voice; quiet and preternaturally calm. The tension in the room racketed up another notch as Rogue blinked, affecting her most vacuously innocent look.

'Me? How would ah…..'

Cyclops raised his hand in a sharp, forestalling motion, 'Don't even try it; I'm sick to the back teeth of secrets.' He slapped his palm down on the table top to emphasise the point.

'Rogue you were involved with the man for the best part of three years, while I know, from witnessing your fights, that he didn't tell you much more than he told us, you must know something about how Gambit operates!'

Scott's voice rose, right on the verge of a shout before he pulled it back. Jean still spaced out with Cerebro, nevertheless frowned a little as if sensing the backlash of Cyclops' anger through their link. Storm turned away from her unsuccessful attempts to hail Forge and folded her arms across her chest.

'Cyclops is right Rogue. If nothing else it is time you told us what you absorbed from Remy when you kissed him.' Her blue eyes were hard and uncompromising, 'There must be a reason you abandoned him to his coma and left the team for four months. Something you have been unwilling to share before now.'

Rogue racked her brain, trying her best to control her panic. She nipped her lip with anxiety. 'Ah….Ah don't….'

Bobby clucked his tongue, 'Come on Rogue, don't say you don't remember; you were getting flash backs all along our bizarre road trip up to Seattle. You were flakier than bran flakes the whole time.'

Rogue stared down at the shiny, cold surface of the War Room table. Her gloved hands knotted together in her lap.

'Ah saw Sinister; ah saw blood and ah heard screaming. All night, every night, ah heard the screaming in mah dreams,' she looked up briefly and angrily, tears prickling against her lashes, 'And ah heard Remy's voice in mah mind, over and over, beggin' ta die, and sayin' he was sorry….'

Rogue ducked her head letting her voice falter. Then she furtively looked up while keeping her head bowed so her hair could fall into her face and obscure her expression. She saw consternation flicker over Storm's face and knew her words had hit the mark. Bobby looked slightly chastened as well but Cyclops feelings, thanks to that darned visor, were anyone's guess.

Across the room Remy's shade slipped past the TV screens, glancing up with wry amusement at the rolling footage of the damage he had caused, before he leaned, arms folded, against the wall.

'Bravo chere; dat was a nice bit of prevarication dere.'

He gave her a slow handclap before checking the red diamond cufflinks on his suit jacket sleeves. Rogue did her best to ignore the figment of her imagination that flatly refused to leave her in peace.

A spark of red flashed behind Cyclops visor and he glanced back once at his wife, who was still zoning out with Cerebro, and then fixed Rogue with a red ruby glare.

'You knew about Sinister but didn't say anything?' he asked her precisely, voice sharp enough to cut glass, 'For God's sake Rogue, why didn't you say anything?'

Rogue hesitated and glanced briefly over to the Remy shade lounging against the wall. He looked back at her flatly and shrugged his shoulders, 'Don' look at me chere, I'm jus' a figment o' your imagination, remember? I ain't even here.'

Rogue almost said something sharp in retort then bit it back before she could say anything that would get her carted right back to the medlab in a straitjacket. Remy's shade smirked at her, amused by her near slip up.

'Rogue?' Cyclops was getting impatient and tetchy and a tetchy Cyclops was hell on Earth.

'Ah was tryin' ta protect him,' she said quietly looking at each person in the room in turn, 'Ah was…..what ah got from his mind,' she shook her head using the gesture to disguise the glare she cast over to the shade in the corner who had laughed snidely at her excuse.

'Ah oui protectin' de real me, is dat what you been doing dese last months?' He laughed with bright mockery, 'So you treat me like shit offa your shoe because you tryin' to protect me?……makes perfect sense now.' He gave her a hard look and cold smile, 'You be sure to tell de real me dat, when you see me, non? Figure I be needin' a good laugh by den.'

Rogue again had to resist saying anything in response and focused on the people who really were in the room.

'Ah didn't want ta say anything until ah knew the whole truth, but then the damn _fool_ wouldn't tell me,' she directed her vehemence towards the shade who flipped her the bird in return. Rogue narrowed her eyes, stung by the disrespect. She shrugged for the benefit of the other people in the room, hunching her shoulders in feigned submission.

'Ah guess the more time went by ah just….well it got more and more muddled.' Rogue looked up pitifully through a curtain of her hair, 'Ah guess ah got to wonderin' if ah really saw what ah thought ah saw.'

In the corner of the room the Remy shade sneered disgusted, 'An' people accuse me of bein' two faced.' He shook his head, 'I ain't got a patch on _you _chere.'

Cyclops let out a deep breath of frustration snapping her attention back to reality, 'Fine, alright; we'll talk about the consequences of your actions later.' Cyclops rolled his neck and shoulders trying to alleviate the tension therein, 'Right now I want to know everything you remember from Gambit's mind….whether or not you have a complete picture or not.' He looked at her keenly, 'Who was Gambit apologising to in your dreams?'

Rogue's heart skipped a beat and she saw the shade stand up straight in alarm. 'Damn, chere, t'ink he might be on to me.' The red eyes turned to her almost accusingly, 'He gon fuck t'ings up royally if he figure out what de real me is plannin' - stop him!'

Rogue blinked astounded, staring at the shade openly in her astonishment. Who did he think he was? Hadn't he just got done insulting her moments earlier?

'Ah…how can ah…what?'

Bobby's hand on her shoulder made her jump and she turned wide eyes to her friend. Bobby's clear gaze was full of worry, 'Rogue are you sure you're okay? You're staring into thin air.'

Rogue looked down at the ground as she gathered her thoughts. She was not a good liar in the way Remy was. She couldn't pretend to be anything other than what she was. She didn't know how to modify her behaviour to fit other peoples' expectations and she didn't know how to say something and mean another - at least not deliberately. However that didn't mean she was honest; no, she had her own tricks when it came to avoiding awkward questions.

'Ah don't know!' Rogue leapt from her chair and glared around the room, 'Ah told ya; ah don't remember what ah got from him. It's just voices; words ah can't make out, just a feelin'…..ah don't know anything!'

She shouted folding her arms around her stomach and ducking her head, forcing a sob up and out of her throat. It was childish, petulant, and more than a little disreputable but Rogue could do with histrionics and wild sobbing what Remy could do with a smile, a wink, and a few vague statements; instant evasion of the issue.

Bobby's face was a mask of sympathy as he rose from his chair to reach out for her, 'Hey, Rogue it's okay…look…'

Storm turned back to the monitor screens with a sigh and a shake of her head, not exactly buying Rogue's act but giving up any hope of a straight answer – which suited Rogue fine, she knew she would never have the other woman's respect and had given up trying to earn it. Cyclops looked as if he might challenge her, however, and Rogue couldn't have that. With one last flounce and sob she spun on her heel and half ran and half flew out of the door.

'Rogue – wait!'

'Bobby, leave it. Rogue will come back when she's calmed down.'

'But Scott…'

'Leave it. That's an order.'

Rogue smiled ever so slightly as she continued down the corridor and their voices dropped away; she'd feel guilty about the manipulation later, for now she was just glad it had worked. Of course, Rogue realised less happily, she'd have to think of a lasting avoidance strategy as Cyclops wouldn't let her play the sulk card twice; as she well knew from bitter experience.

The Remy shade was waiting for her when she reached the elevator to the upper floors. He was leaning against the wall for support as he laughed himself red in the face.

'Ahhh chere dat was tres, tres bien! C'est magnifique; de screechin' at de end was my favourite part.'

Rogue narrowed her eyes at the shade as she slammed the button to call the elevator and with great dignity refrained from comment. The Remy shade slipped into the elevator with her as the doors opened.

'For de record though,' he added just a little uncomfortably, 'I never fell for any of your tantrums when you played dat game wit' me.'

He said casually adjusting his thin red tie in the mirror-glass of the elevator, casting her a less than honest sideways look. Rogue snorted sourly. She knew for a fact that Remy had no more defence against a sobbing woman than any other man – less in fact, as she knew he was as soft as marshmallow on the inside.

'Ya're a lyin' snake, Cajun,' she muttered, frowning at her own reflection in the mirror. She did not like looking at her reflection – she never much liked what she saw there.

The Remy shade beside her stopped playing with his tie and grinned back at her, 'An' you're a Prima Donna bitch, chere.' He winked, 'Dat's why we make a good team.'

Rogue's smile faltered before it fully graced her face. She tugged on a lock of hair before twisting it behind her ear. 'Are…are ya…' she took a breath and tried again, 'In St Louis, should ah be worried that the real ya took out a city street?'

The shade slanted a wry look her way, 'Well you tell me, chere. I mean you t'ink it's okay for a body to go round blowin' city blocks sky high?'

Rogue nodded, getting the confirmation she needed, 'It's ya powers, ain't it sugar? Ah mean the real ya; he's lost control of them again.'

She looked at the shade keenly. As much as she disliked having a facet of another personality stuck inside her head, there was a comfort in having some aspect of Remy with her still.

The shade gave her a brilliant, slightly wild smile, 'Ah chere, you ain't ever seen me outta control.' He reached out suddenly and clasped her chin in his hand, tilting her head up as he leaned in close.

'Don you worry none though; de real fun's jus' beginning.'

Rogue shivered as the phantom's lips brushed against her own.

* * *

Alexander Summers, the mutant called Havok looked over the abandoned lot in Virginia with arms folded and foot tapping. In deference to a vague notion of maintaining anonymity he had thrown on a t-shirt, jeans, hiking boots and a battered suede coat over his power-regulating uniform.

'Okay - other than a mess, what am I looking at here?'

'Umm, not a whole hell of a lot,' Fatale drawled laconically as she sauntered over to him and ran her hands over his shoulders from behind.

'Are you sure I can't persuade you to go someplace else? I can 'port us anywhere – think on it; candlelight, you, me, a bottle of champagne and massage oil – sounds good, right?'

Alex Summers did his best not to gag in response and settled instead for shrugging off her hands. Fatale was useful but she was also unbelievably annoying. Idly Havok considered incinerating her with a plasma blast. Well, he was supposed to be evil now, wasn't he? In the end though, just like all the times before, he erred on the side of caution and left her alive.

He might be on the dark side now but he was still a Summers; some things just went beyond politics.

'You are really beginning to piss me off now, Fatale. Can we concentrate on business please?'

She rolled her eyes at him, 'Jeez okay; sheesh I think I liked you better when you were silent and violent. You are soooo tense nowadays.'

Havok once again debated the merits of murder, and once again bottled it at the last instant. Once he'd figured out what was going on, found some other mutants to join his new cause (and once he figured out exactly what his cause was) he would kill her. It was something to look forward too, right?

He frowned at the debris strewn lot. Clearly there had been some kind of fight; one involving mutants if the property damage was any indication. Still there was no evidence that Lorna was here, or that she ever had been. His eyes narrowed as he focused on something lying on the ground near a large pile of broken bricks.

He clambered over the debris pile and crouched down beside the broken velvet choker with the cracked enamel face motif. He jerked his hand back just before he touched it. He recognised that necklace!

'Fuck me,' he exclaimed thoughtlessly.

'Anytime,' Fatale didn't miss a beat. Havok gritted his teeth.

'Would you please shut up?'

That was it, screw building an army of proactive militant mutants to take the race into a new future, he was going to kill Fatale as soon as he found out what had happened to Lorna.

Once he had made this vow Alex felt instantly better. He nudged the choker with the toe of his boot, warily. 'This doesn't make sense. Malice was destroyed; I was there. I felt it when she - it – whatever died.'

Havok hesitated then reminded himself that hesitation wasn't a part of who he was anymore and reached out to pick up the choker in his hands. Nothing happened. He did not suddenly fall under the malign influence of Malice and start mincing about and calling everyone 'sweetie' or anything equally embarrassing. Considering all the malign (or just plain embarrassing) influences he had been under in his time that was actually a refreshing change.

He examined the choker in his hands; running his fingers over the design and the worn velvet. 'A fake?' he tapped the cheap enamel, 'It's a fake; a good fake, but it's still a fake.' Alex frowned thoughtfully, who the hell would want to make a fake Malice choker?

Unless…….

Reaching into his jacket pocket Alex Summers pulled the playing card out and examined it; the card was the ace of diamonds. He peered at the writing, scrawled in black marker diagonally across the back of the card to maximise the room available.

_Does le bête noir know where the garden be?_

On the face of the card the same person that had penned the cryptic message had sketched in a collection of co-ordinates. Alex already knew what location those co-ordinates pertained to. He had discovered where the Dark Beast was being held in federal custody weeks ago…..he'd just been waiting for the opportune minute to strike.

Uh-huh, Alex Summers' inner critic drawled, riiiiight you were waiting for the _opportune_ moment to strike. God, he was such a wuss. Even evil, he was still a wuss; that was really pathetic. Alex shook his head and the snide voice inside subsided for the time being.

Dang it, alright, so procrastination was a hard habit to crack but that didn't mean Alex was wrong to hang fire on a rescue for the Dark Beast. Hell, it wasn't like Alex had any great love for the hairy bastard to begin with. The Dark Beast had kidnapped, brainwashed, and just basically screwed with him for months after all.

Havok flicked the card with a finger; the use of a playing card and the odd French phraseology all pointed to Gambit as the sender. Alex wasn't sure what to make of that; he and Gambit had barely ever spoken – and of all the X-men he had thought might come after him in some misguided attempt to save him from himself, Gambit wasn't anywhere on that list. Plus, the message didn't seem to be an attempt at salvation either.

Why would Gambit or any of his brother's team of X-men, hand over the co-ordinates to the Dark Beast's location? The idea that his brother was trying to set him up for an ambush went totally against everything he knew of Scott. His brother did not set underhanded traps for people. Scott was too honourable and straight forward for that sort of thing.

Alex pocketed both the card and the choker. He'd been wrestling with the purpose behind the card since it arrived, more or less on the doorstep of his subterranean base in New York two days ago. One of the first things he'd done was tap into the hacked feed he had to all X-Factor in and outgoing communication transmissions to see if he could glean anything from that.

He'd hit pay dirt almost immediately.

Hacking into the transmission feed he'd intercepted an emergency transmission to Westchester with a very worrying theme. That's when he'd found out about Lorna and all concerns about strange messages and his brother's interference in his life had ceased to matter.

He still remembered word for word every syllable of Forge's emergency transmission to the mansion. It had been one of his better moves, even if he did say so himself, to delay the transmission so that it wouldn't reach Scott until _after_ Alex himself had had the chance to investigate.

Yeah, technically he and Lorna were 'taking a break' in their relationship. The fact that he'd tried to kill her and then run off to be a mutant renegade (otherwise known as loitering about under the streets of New York trying to figure out what the hell had happened to him) had put a real damper on their romance.

Of course the attempted homicide wasn't the relationship killer for him and Lorna that it might be for any other couple not associated with the 'X'. Hell trying to kill each other while under the influence of evil beings was kind of their trademark. Scott and Jean got the love that could withstand death bit; he and Lorna had the love that can (just barely) withstand almost constant mind fucks. It lacked a certain poetry sure, but it was what it was.

Regardless of any of that however, if Lorna was in trouble he was going to find out what it was and try and help. It didn't matter if she hated him (or tried to kill him). Alex Summers was a man who liked consistency; he would help Lorna because to do nothing just wasn't in his character – even after the Dark Beast's tampering.

'So, recap,' he murmured to himself gathering his thoughts and putting them in order. 'Lorna's AWOL; Sabretooth is with her. Lorna is for some reason pretending to be possessed by Malice. The Dark Beast's mutant energy tracer puts her in this lot within the last twelve to fourteen hours. Clearly she was fighting someone, or a lot of people here.'

Alex, still crouched in the rubble of the fallen down wall where he'd found the choker, rubbed his mouth with his fingers as he thought. 'That's what I know…so what does it _tell _me?'

'Well, I don't know what it tells _you_, Tall, Blonde and Moody, but it tells _me_ you really ought to stop talking to yourself.'

Alex didn't bother to look up at the skulking Fatale. 'I thought I told you to shut up? What part of 'Shut' and 'Up' did you not understand?'

He rose to stand and brushed off his pants out of habit. He looked over the entire lot with a practiced eye. Alex Summers had never wanted to be a leader, or a soldier, or a mutant crusader. He had wanted to be either a professional NBA player (and at six foot nothing he was too damn short for that) or a field geologist. Field geologists knew squat about mutant battlefields.

Alex smiled humourlessly.

It was funny really how life came along and screwed with a man's plans because Alex Summers had never gotten to finish the post doctorate degree that would have led him into his cheerfully dull life of academia. It seemed doubtful he ever would get that Post Doc. now; what with the mutant renegade thing.

In contrast, however, he could now look over this lot and pick out, with precise detail, every tell-tale clue to the battle that had occurred hours earlier. His precision was such in fact that had he had the props to hand he could have re-enacted the whole damn thing.

Alex Summers stifled a cynical laugh; life was a funny thing, wasn't it?

* * *

Homo-sapiens were really staggeringly stupid.

That thought popped into Remy Lebeau's head as he walked through the foyer of the bus station they'd agreed as their meeting place and spotted the imposing form of the seven foot Sabretooth leering at him over the heads of the crowds of people bustling to and fro.

Walking towards the two people standing at the back of the foyer Remy would never have classified either the athletically built green haired woman or the huge, hulking Sabretooth as human - and he certainly wouldn't have let them hang around in a public place unwatched.

He shook his head considering the amount of tax payer dollars that went into the mutant hate business, the Average Joe was really kind of clueless about mutants unless they were floating twenty feet in the air and wearing brightly coloured capes.

'Bonjour mes braves,' he eyed Creed sceptically and nodded politely to the tight lipped Lorna Dane. He had the feeling, looking at the pair, that they had had an interesting fifty-two hours too.

Lorna stepped forward to greet him as he approached. 'You look like hell.' She told him bluntly. He smiled.

'Dat's good because I feel like I been dere.' He rolled his eyes and then turned his attention to Creed.

'Bonjour M'sieur Tooth,' He looked up at the large man calmly. Creed did not scare him but it was still a struggle not to pull out some cards and take a chance at blasting the monster into oblivion.

'Hello punk.'

Creed stepped forward, attempting to loom with menace over Remy. He grinned wide enough to display his impressive incisors to best advantage. Remy was unimpressed. He looked up at the man he really, _truly_ loathed with a perfectly blank face.

'If'n you keep leering at me like dat m'sieur tooth, people, dey gon t'ink you comin' on t'me, non?'

He winked at the other man; having been raised the way he had he didn't have the luxury of developing the prejudices most folks indulged. Man or woman was just a preference; the body just a package hiding the person as far as he was concerned. Still, he knew Creed didn't see things that way and the implication wiped the smile straight from the large man's face.

Lorna snickered; Remy couldn't be sure but he'd lay a hefty bet that Creed had already tried to kill Lorna – and then realised that he couldn't. At least not when Lorna's magnetic powers were the only thing breaking the circuit to the chip in his head.

Remy grinned on the inside; he wished he'd been around to see the look on Creed's face when he'd tried to take Lorna out and found he couldn't harm a hair on her head. Ah oui, he'd have paid good money to see that.

Creed sneered, 'What yer grinning at Cajun?' the man was looking a lot less smug now. Remy beamed at him.

The ploy was the best insurance Remy could think of to ensure he and Lorna could control Creed at least for the time being. It was also a deliciously ironic revenge and Remy intended to savour every moment of Creed's humiliation and frustration. Petty, oui, but _damn_ was it ever satisfying.

'You m'sieur,' He cocked his head to the side and settled back into his most insouciant stance, grin growing impossibly wide. Creed looked like he was sucking on a bagful of lemons. Something inside Remy skipped a beat with glee. He glanced at Lorna with a sly smile before addressing Creed in his most laconic and aggravatingly insouciant tone of voice.

'Tell me homme,' he drawled watching the large man with dancing eyes, 'what you t'ink gon happen to you if'n you kill me or Lorna, eh; you t'ink you gon live long once de X-men and Sinister find out?'

Creed growled lips skinned back from his teeth. Remy hefted his dufflebag and shoved it into the feral mutant's hands before capitalising on Creed's outraged surprise by shoving past him and looping an arm around Lorna's waist.

'Face it, M'sieur, of de three of us you are de most expendable.' He all but purred, 'So, to my way o' t'inkin', you be between de devil an' a hard place.'

He called over his shoulder as he swept Lorna along beside him headed for the bus station exit, 'You need us more'n we need you. Figure even you'd have guessed dat by now.'

Creed's face contorted in rage and although Remy could not see the other man he could feel the frustrated hatred that poured off him as he swallowed a growl. Remy kept walking unafraid of having Creed at his back. As much as he might despise the man, Remy understood Sabretooth, perhaps more than he should – but then Remy had always been well acquainted with the ways of the devil and his minions.

Creed was violent, cruel and vicious; he had next to no impulse control. Yet for all that, he wasn't completely stupid; he held his own survival above all else. While Lorna held his leash he'd play along, and it really didn't matter that he'd be planning to kill them every second of the time; all that mattered was that he _couldn't actually do it_.

Remy had always known he played a game of high stakes every day of his life; that's why he'd stacked the deck from the get-go.

'I'm gonna enjoy gutting yer Lebeau.' Creed snarled striding forward in two large steps to come abreast with Remy and Lorna. He slammed the bag back into Remy's chest. 'And when I do, this time yer won't be running away.' Creed shoved into him as he moved forward knocking the Cajun back a step.

Slinging the bag back over his shoulder by the strap Remy laughed unperturbed as Sabretooth prowled ahead.

'Mebbe homme, but you like livin' more.' He called after him snickering. He was thoroughly enjoying getting one over on Creed. It was sheer lunacy that inspired his next words, but he could not resist.

'You forgettin' m'sieur; I know your _price_; I know how to_ own_ you.'

Remy could see the words hit home as the larger man's fists curled and his shoulders tensed. He smiled broadly, and not a little cruelly, at Creed's back. This was power, he thought almost giddily, and mon dieu, he _liked _it.

Lorna smacked him lightly in the chest, 'Stop it. We might have control of Creed at the moment but if you keep provoking him it will be_ me _he goes for first.' She shook her head eyes fixed on Creed's departing back. 'He could have killed me in Virginia if it wasn't for that chip.'

Remy shook his head in turn still smiling and absently gave Lorna's waist a squeeze. 'Ah Mademoiselle, I have faith in your ability to kick m'sieur Creed to de curb any day o' de week.'

Lorna disengaged his arm from her waist and peered sideways at him sceptically, 'What are you on? This is serious.' She frowned suspiciously, 'Did you know you're shaking?'

'Oui,' Distantly he was aware of the dizzying buzz in the back of his head, the ache behind his eyes, and the cramping throb in his fingertips but it was hard to concentrate on such things while his blood was singing in his veins. He shrugged still smiling.

'I figure dat be on account of de adrenaline in my system an' de fact dat I've had zero sleep in 'bout fifty hours.' When she frowned at him concerned he conceded her point with a flap of his hands, 'Makes me a little punchy; I be okay after some food an' a couple hours rest, non?'

He peered at Lorna noting the dark circles round her eyes and the faint bruises covered by foundation tracing her jaw, 'Guess neither of us have had a great few days, non?'

Lorna snorted derisively, 'That's an understatement.'

He grinned and winked, still feeling like he was walking on a bed of air instead of solid ground, 'I'll tell you mine if'n you tell me yours?'

Lorna looked him up and down highly doubtfully, 'I think that can wait until you're sober.'

She told him pointedly and he laughed; it wasn't that funny but he really did feel like he'd been on the booze all day. Very distantly it occurred to him that that really should be worrying him - but it didn't.

On the one hand he knew Lorna was talking sense, on the other it had been too, too long since he'd worked a scam this elaborate and he was still flying high on the sheer rush from it all. He knew eventually he'd hit the ground and the full magnitude of what he had done, and what he was planning to do, would come home to him. He wasn't looking forward to that moment and intended to enjoy the high for as long as he could.

Guilt was inevitable so why hasten it along, oui?

Still he knew, glancing furtively over to the woman walking beside him, that there was something he needed to say to her now, before events overtook him. Lorna had been incredibly trusting towards him from the get go, and lord knew trust and co-operation were rare enough in his life that he valued them for the great gifts they were. He owed it to her to tell her what he'd done.

Nevertheless he was pretty sure Lorna was going to be tres, tres pissed with him when he told her and he wasn't looking forward to dealing with it. He had more than enough mad as hell femmes in his life as it was.

'Hey Mademoiselle?' he stopped walking. Lorna turned back, frowning at him and then came back to where he stood.

'What is it? I know Creed's harmless without me to de-activate the chip, but I still don't like letting him out of sight.' She glanced back over her shoulder at the tall blonde man striding away towards the taxi rank outside the bus station like a man shaped storm of suppressed rage.

'Oui, but dere somet'ing you should know.' Remy took a breath – in for a penny in for a pound there was nothing for it but to jump right in and say it.

'What?' Lorna waited, just ever so slightly suspicious now.

Remy sighed bracing himself for imminent fireworks. 'It got to do wit' your beau, Lorna, it got to do wit' Alex.'

* * *

Alex paced the abandoned lot; Fatale blithering on at his heels. Here was the point where some sort of close quarters fight had taken place. The blood spatters over the floor and the nearby wall suggesting edged weapons – or, considering who was likely in this fight, maybe _claws. _Over by the fallen wall some sort of powers fight had taken place; Lorna and at least one other energy wielder, or maybe someone with super strength.

'A body would be great – or even a body _part_ - something that would tell me who she was fighting.' He muttered irritated.

'You mean like this?' Fatale was standing a short way away by a separate pile of debris. Alex walked over cautiously.

It was rarely a good idea to get too near Fatale as she had roaming hands and no sense of personal space, but if she had found something he could not ignore it.

He reached the mutant assassin and constant thorn in his side and looked down at what she had uncovered underneath a covering of bricks, mortar and broken glass. Alex Summers did not wince, but some part of him wished he still could, as he looked down at the ruin of a woman's body lying on its back on the cracked concrete.

For one horrific second as Alex tried to work out what he was seeing in the mutilated remains his gaze caught on the pale, long green hair and he thought it was Lorna. His stomach roiled and then his mind finally recognised the body lying at his feet.

'Vertigo.'

He sucked in a breath even as his eyes catalogued the wide tears and rips in her flesh caused by a fistful of claws. The smell of rotting meat and tacky drying blood filled his nostrils and Havok turned his face away.

'Cover that back up,' he ordered Fatale. That was one good thing to having a deranged (amorous) assassin at his beck and call, he supposed. He sure as hell had never received this kind of obedience from anyone in X-Factor.

Walking a few feet away Alex looked over the debris piles a little more keenly. He didn't spot any more bodies but he had the feeling that they were here – Vertigo would not have fought alone. He closed his eyes and took a restorative breath. He could not, _would not_, believe that Lorna had been taken out by the Marauders – but the only way to be sure was to dig up every single body hidden in this lot.

Alex Summers shook his head; corpse recovering was not his idea of a good time. Yet he could not think of a better way of gathering clues……Or could he?

He pulled the playing card from his pocket once more and looked down at it.

Maybe the cryptic message and Lorna's disappearance were linked? Coincidence wasn't really something that factored highly in the lives of X-men after all – or Sinister either.

_Does le bête noir know where the garden be?_

Alex frowned; it looked like he had no choice now. He couldn't delay any longer; he needed to go and see the Dark Beast.

'Fatale, open a portal. I think it's time to talk with your old boss.'

'Really?' Fatale stepped forward, 'We're going to bust him loose?'

Alex Summers hesitated and then sighed. It wasn't like he could just stroll in for a visit, was it? Breaking the Dark Beast out of Federal custody would probably be easier than trying to sneak in and talk to him.

'Yeah, it's beginning to look that way.' He muttered. He handed over the playing card. There was a second set of co-ordinates on the reverse of the card; a meeting place if Alex was any judge. It looked like whoever sent the card was pretty confident that Alex would want to talk to him, which was another indication the sender was Gambit. The mutant card sharp of the X-men's arrogance was legendary, after all.

While as Alex Summers wasn't thrilled to be acting exactly as someone had planned for him to act, he couldn't deny his curiosity; especially when it came to the 'Garden'. The Dark Beast, hairy grey bastard that he was, had been looking for Sinister's Garden for years – he'd ranted on about it for long enough while he'd held Alex prisoner that was for damn sure - and that had sparked an answering interest in Alex, which demanded satisfying.

Fatale opened one of her teleportational windows and smiled back at him. Havok regarded the portal without much enthusiasm but after a second walked through it with every impression of confidence. For the strangest reason he was certain that he would find Lorna waiting for him on the other side when he stepped through.

Under the circumstances, the thought wasn't all that comforting.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter Seventeen: Speculation**

The cards flipped through his fingers making little slithery sounds as he swept them together and rifled them up into a messy pack. Fanning the cards he snapped the deck closed again and repeated the whole process.

The crisp night sky was dominated by a bulbous full moon; heavy and sombre in the heavens. The air was sharp and bracing with midnight frost and wisps of inky clouds periodically scudded over the face of the moon. The hillside he stood atop was empty and all around farmland spilled over the undulating landscape like a patchwork quilt thrown askew from heaven.

It was a beautiful night; encapsulated within its own solitude and perfection. It was a shame therefore that Remy Lebeau failed to notice it. He crouched on the balls of his feet, perfectly balanced, with the long grass dusted with frosted dew scratching at his knees, and saw nothing whatsoever of the beauty around him.

He had forgotten to light the cigarette dangling from his bottom lip and he hadn't blinked in over a minute and a half. Behind his eyeballs the world exploded, imploded, ceased to be and reformed like the over-worked neurons in his brain. Remy Lebeau shivered, almost a full body shudder, as he dragged himself away from the precipice and back into the here and now.

He rose to his feet in time to greet the two people who stepped through the blue-green teleportational window that opened up in thin air before him.

'Bon nuit,' he managed the polite greeting as he eyed the blonde man and the greyish-green skinned woman through a haze of exhaustion and shimmering energy. The shape and outline of the two mutants seemed to blur at the edges, as if surrounded by a heat haze. Remy Lebeau fought hard not to be sick as he kept himself standing by sheer bloody-minded will power alone.

'Gambit?' Alex Summers, Cyclops lil' brother, looked around him at the bare and barren hillside in the middle of nowhere as if expecting someone else. Remy smiled caustically.

'She ain't here,' the blonde man's blue eyes snapped to his intently.

He shrugged, 'Figure you might've found out 'bout Lorna,' Remy dragged his thoughts together into linear order. He felt like he was trying to explain the obvious from the wrong end of the equation. It was like the longest episode of déjà vu he'd ever had. He couldn't remember what was known, what had happened, and what had yet to happen.

'She be helpin' me wit' findin' de Jardin.'

'I see.' Havok said crisply, however Gambit sincerely doubted he did. Unless of course he happened to be experiencing the same prolonged delirium Remy was.

The blonde man pulled something out of his jacket pocket. Remy was unconcerned. It seemed like the other man was moving through mud anyhow; every action telegraphed well in advance. After a small eternity Alex held out a broken choker.

'So it was your idea that Lorna pretend to be Malice?' the blonde frowned, 'She's faking it for the X-men's benefit isn't she?'

Remy grinned, 'Oui, so she can go back once it done,' he shrugged, 'She don' deserve to have her life ruined because o' somet'ing she got no choice in; she tell de X-men she got Maliced an' dey ain't gon say a word.' He gestured airily with his open palms, 'Jus' like de firs' time, non?'

A breeze ruffled through the short strands of Alex's severe crew cut and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Behind him the silent Fatale examined Remy the way a cat watches a mouse. He smiled at her brightly; there were no prey animals here - only predators.

'But why; why are the Marauders after her….' Alex stopped and blinked, 'Shit, Sinister wants her back doesn't he?'

Remy smirked benignly, 'Ah mon ami, you get any sharper you gon cut yoursel' non?'

The jeune Summers gave him a drool look, which reminded Remy of Cyclops momentarily. 'What's your interest? How do you know about the Garden?'

Remy shrugged as if this was very little consequence. The words that tripped off his tongue in disinterested drawl were anything but inconsequential however.

'De homme Sinister had me in his labs once upon a time, figures he owns me,' the confession seemed to slip so easily from his lips and Remy laughed at the fact. So many years of hiding, and running, and it was so damned easy to confess to a near complete stranger. He shook his head in self-disgust.

There was some sort of profound message there, he was sure, but he didn't have time to puzzle it out. Hell it might be as simple as accepting the fact that he'd picked the wrong folks to believe in to begin with, non?

All that introspective crap could wait however; Remy had a deal to close. He smiled slyly at the jeune Summers who was himself well accustomed to being used and abused by a whole slew of villainous types.

'Moi, I inten' to prove de homme wrong in dat assumption; figure de bes' way to do dat is to mess wit' de homme's Jardin – hit him where it hurt, oui?'

Alex Summers took a long moment to assimilate this, 'Okay; I'm going to assume there is way more to it than that,' he shrugged his shoulders, 'But frankly I couldn't care less. I just want to know what you want from me.'

Remy smiled contentedly; how refreshing it was to be faced with the jeune Summers lack of caution compared to his control freak of a brother. 'D'accord; heard a rumour dat de Bete Noir knows about de jardin an' Sinister; want to pick his brains, me.'

Alex gave him a sharp blue eyed look, 'That explains what you want with the Dark Beast; I asked what you wanted with _me_.'

Remy shrugged, smirk still in place. Well, well looked like the petit frère was trying to play hard ball; wasn't that cute? Shame then that there wasn't a body alive, save maybe Essex hisself that could play this game to the bone like Remy could; he looked keenly at Alex Summers and laid out the bait.

'You help me get to le bete noir, let me talk to de homme, den mebbe me an' mine help you get even for what de bête did to you, oui?'

Alex Summers eyebrows shot up in surprise. He stared at Remy, who in turn finally remembered the unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth and lit the end with a finger. He inhaled lustily as he waited for the jeune Summers to get it together.

'And Lorna's okay with this?' the other man finally asked not the question ha had expected but Remy was adaptable.

He took a moment to take a long drag from his cigarette, 'Ah oui, she _thrilled_.'

He deliberately ignored the throbbing cut on his bottom lip where Lorna's furious backhand had caught him after he'd told her of his plan to involve Alex in their rebellion. Thrilled was perhaps not quite the right word for her reaction but the jeune Summers didn't need to know that.

Remy exhaled a stream of smoke and took charge of the negotiations once more, 'Why you care anyhow, mon ami? Not so long ago you tried to kill Lorna, non?'

Alex Summers winced and then controlled it, 'That was an accident,' his eyes sought the grassy ground in respite, 'there were mitigating circumstances…..it wasn't personal.'

Remy grinned; it wasn't personal? Ah oui, he was going to have to try that line out next time he almost killed a body. Sorry homme, it wasn't personal I was just having a bad day, non? Mon dieu no wonder Lorna was pissed; not only did her beau try and kill her but he couldn't even come up with a decent excuse. Still he wasn't one to talk about owning up to responsibility and taking the consequences of an action so he let it slide.

'D'accord,' he murmured easily replacing the spent cigarette in his mouth with a new one, 'So, we got a deal or not?'

Alex Summers hesitated for another handful of seconds before nodding, 'Okay – sure; you've got a deal.'

Remy smiled; this was all just too damned easy.

* * *

'You did what?'

In all honesty he probably should have seen the blow coming, especially as it was the second one from Lorna in twelve hours, and in someways he had, but then again he figured he owed her this one _last_ shot. Still when the open handed slap to the jaw was coupled with a magnetic pulse that sent him smacking into the wall of the cheap motel room they had rented Remy Lebeau decided that enough was enough.

'I contacted your ex.' He snapped, his carefully maintained accent dropping away as he shook the wits back into his head, 'Like I said I would. He went for the deal; like I figured he would.' He gave her a withering look as he prepared to drag himself upright, 'You wan' me to draw you a diagram, mademoiselle?'

He dusted himself up, deliberately ignoring Creed's snide laughter and found himself face to face with a very pissed off Lorna Dane.

'I still can't _believe_ you've got him involved; do I need to remind you that Alex tried to kill me?'

Remy steadied himself and waited for the world to stop spinning as he tongued the cut that had re-opened on his bottom lip, 'So? Not like dat's unusual wit' folks like us, non? Mebbe dis be your time to repay de favour, eh?'

Working at walking a straight line the few paces between the wall and the bed he dropped down onto the end of the lumpy motel bed and stretched his arms out wide in cruciform across the scratchy blanket. The heavy silence was full of the pressing weight of two pairs of eyes burning into him. Remy decided that some manner of explanation was necessary and resigned himself to the irritation.

Still, trying to render into words the sublime perfection of the chains of cause and effect he could see dancing before his eyes was like trying to describe colour to the born blind.

'I tol' you already what mon professeur said about de Bete Noir before Chuckles let himself be takin' by de gov'ment, oui?' he tried to control his impatience. He knew it wasn't Lorna's fault she couldn't see the world as he did.

'Henri's evil side knows a t'ing or two 'bout m'sieur Essex; dat's why, accordin' to mon professeur, he tried hidin' wit' de X-men in de firs' place.' Remy closed his eyes but that did not help his pounding head so he opened them again the world inside the motel room swam before his eyes behind a film of shifting light and energy.

'De jeune Summers be de best way to get to le Bete,' he flapped a hand in an impatient gesture. 'Where's de problem, eh? Or you gon tell me you not been worried about Alex all dis time?'

Lorna made a disgusted and angry sound but as she didn't try to give him a stroke or batter him with the iron in his own blood stream he figured she had seen the sense of his argument.

'I'm beginning to see why the X-men don't trust you, Gambit,' she muttered darkly. 'Are you even capable of doing things in an honest and open way?'

He grinned humourlessly staring up at the slowly rotating cobweb clogged ceiling fan as it cast strange shadows over the ceiling and did nothing to dispel the heavy air inside the motel. 'Dunno Mademoiselle, ain't never tried.'

The ceiling seemed to be melting and dripping sparks of pure white luminescence but as he had been fairly consistently hallucinating for the last day or so anyway, and neither of the other two mutants in the room seemed overly concerned, he decided to ignore the phenomena.

'You done wit' de temper tantrum Lorna? Or you want to bounce me offa de walls some more?'

He asked her tiredly after a few moments contemplating his own delirium. Lorna had a right to be pissed but that didn't mean he had to be too sympathetic. He had enough issues already and strangely, he wasn't feeling all that understanding at the moment.

Polaris plopped down on the edge of the bed beside him, 'I'm still pissed but you look so pathetic right now it takes the fun out of kicking your ass.' She looked over her shoulder to glare at him, 'I'll just do it later – after Alex has betrayed us all and you realise how utterly stupid this plan is.'

Still lying flat on his back Remy saluted her with one raised hand, 'D'accord; I'll look forward to it den.'

Mon dieu, he'd only been lying down a minute or so and already the lack of motion was beginning to make his teeth hurt; he so badly wanted to blow something up it was actually beginning to worry him.

Whatever Betts had knocked free in his mind was a lot worse than a few old memories better left forgotten. Somewhere along the way he'd popped a gasket or two in his head; didn't feel much like himself anymore. Non, that wasn't right. It was like he felt so _himself_ he was bursting out of the seams. It was the restraint, the fear of what he could do, that was missing.

All in all he really wished he had the energy to care about that.

Lorna hesitated an expression of fleeting concern crossing her features before, much to both of their surprise, she reached down and placed her hand over his forehead. Remy blinked up at her trying to keep her face in focus.

'Seriously, what is going on with you?' she asked him, 'Ignoring the fact that you blew up an entire city street, which by the way I'm still opposed to even though I know why you did it,' Lorna took a breath to marshal her thoughts, 'You look ill, and you're pupils are pinpricks; what's wrong with you?'

Remy considered this and almost involuntarily glanced to where Sabretooth was watching them both by the motel room window. Creed was peering at him intently without blinking; like a jackal he could smell weakness, and his eyes gleamed with opportunity. Remy sighed. He'd rather not have drawn attention to any of it, but the last thing he needed was Creed getting any ideas that he was easy meat.

Remy had made a vow that Scalphunter would be the first and last person to die at his hands in this mess; even if Creed deserved to die and roast in hell, Remy didn't want any more blood on his conscience.

'You know dat Essex messed wit' my head, oui?' he focused on Lorna but his words were just as much for Creed as they were for her.

'Yes.' Lorna was watching him intently and the concern in her regard, despite the fact that she had just slapped him into a wall moments previously, was oddly touching.

'Well, dere was a slight….hiccup….back at de mansion,' Remy winced in memory of the pain he had felt when Betsy sliced and diced his mind. 'Kinda ended up getting spiked by Psylocke's mind-knife an' my powers been going lil' haywire since den.'

He flapped his hands once more to encompass all and nothing, 'Figure I mebbe popped a few stitches in my head – knocked loose some stuff Essex din't want me havin' access to.'

Sabretooth laughed cruelly, 'Shit punk you been fucked in the head as long as I known yer – don't see that yer can get more screwed up then yer already are.'

He shook his head seeming highly amused by his own words. Remy glared at him but didn't rise from the bed because he didn't think he'd be able to get his body to obey the command. Creed leered at him with glittering eyes.

'Scalphunter told me once what yer were like when yer powers were outta whack – before Sinister nipped and tucked yer brain.' The other man shook his head still grinning as if the prospect of an out of control Gambit was highly entertaining, 'Could be fun if I get t'gut yer with yer powers at full; been looking for a challenge.'

Had he still possessed the necessary parts of his brain needed to blow stuff up just by glaring at it, Sabretooth would have been obliterated by the look Remy gave him then. Sadly, or not considering his aforementioned vow, that ability was long gone.

Remy did however manage to get his hand to work properly and he felt the gesture he gave Sabretooth eloquently portrayed his feelings. Creed, who had been in disturbingly ebullient mood since he'd found out the plan was to knock off a government installation, just laughed once again.

Lorna looked from one to the other of them, 'There's a drugstore down the block; I'll go get some Tylenol or something - it might take the edge off your fever.' She frowned distractedly as she looked down on Remy, 'I really don't like the idea that you don't have full control.'

He smiled at her blandly clasping one of her hands in his and kissing the back of it with absent minded chivalry, 'Merci mademoiselle, my head's sore killin' me.'

Lorna rose from the bed and glared at Creed, 'The chip's active until I turn it off; don't try anything.' She speared Remy with an equally baleful look, '_Either_ of you.'

'We be good as gold, Lorna; don you worry.' He smiled at her eyes twinkling madly. Sabretooth just snarled half-heartedly. Both men waited until Lorna's boot heels had clacked away down the concrete walkway outside the motel room.

'Ding-dong the bitch is gone,' Sabretooth sneered after a moment and rapped his claws against the dirty plastic frame of the window. Remy smoothly sat up once more on the bed and twisted to face Creed.

He smiled, 'So homme, let's talk.'

Creed grinned showing a lot of teeth.

* * *

The atmosphere in the Blackbird cabin was taut and near shivering with tension; the air so rife with things unsaid it was nearly deafening even to those who were completely headblind.

The trip to St. Louis had proved fruitless; they knew no more now about Gambit's motives than they had from watching the news footage. Scott Summers tightened his grip on the steering levers of the Blackbird and tried to think beyond the pounding tension headache gnawing at his brain.

A strident Mississippi voice rose on the edge of anger and grated agaisnt the last of his nerves as it reached him from the back of the cabin.

'He was leavin'? Y'all knew Remy was plannin' on runnin' out on us an' ya didn't say anything?'

'Rogue – only myself, Scott, and Logan were aware of Remy's decision to take a leave of absence from the team. It was not something Remy wanted widely known and it was not a move any of us supported.'

Storm's cultured and level tones were beginning to sound frayed around the edges. Scott thought about intervening but found he just did not have the energy right now. This whole situation was a hellish mess and right this minute, if Gambit had suddenly materialised before him in the cockpit, Scott would have happily blasted him through the windshield of the Blackbird and into the ether with one full strength, optic blast.

'Why didn't he tell _me_?'

Rogue was demanding and Scott was not the only one who suppressed a sour snort of disbelief at that statement. Whereas Scott firmly believed that blame for the problems between Gambit and Rogue lay with both of them equally he couldn't entirely blame Gambit for not telling Rogue of his intention to quit the team.

While Joseph offered the platitudes and sympathy Rogue seemed to crave in the back of the plane Scott was mildly surprised when Wolverine came up front to sit in the vacant co-pilot seat beside him. The Canadian, ignoring all safety protocols, propped his feet up on the edge of the control dash and failed to fasten the safety belt. Scott thought about chiding him but decided that it wasn't worth the effort.

'Been thinkin' Cyke,' the older man began in his usual gruffly laconic way.

'Well I'm glad someone has,' Scott muttered darkly, 'I'm at my wits end with all this.'

Despite their sometimes quite vocal and publicised clashes Wolverine and Scott had learned how to tolerate one another over the years. They had a system, and while Scott was sure that Wolverine was almost entirely responsible for the one or two pre-mature grey hairs he had found in the mirror while shaving, for the most part Scott felt that their arrangement worked quite well.

At the very least Scott never doubted Wolverine's intentions or dedication to the team, even if, more often than not, Scott wanted to drop kick the diminutive Canuck to Timbuktu and back at least twice a day on average.

Wolverine chuffed a dry laugh at that, 'Figure Jeannie didn't tell us everything about the Cajun's history with Sinister.' The older man shrugged as Scott turned his head fractionally to look at him.

'Ain't pretendin' me or Gumbo are close, but I figure bein' as me an' him walked in the same circles, got some enemies in common, it gives me an insight into Gumbo that the rest o'yer don't have.'

'Possibly,' Scott agreed dryly, 'You are both authority baiting, reprehensible reprobates with more skeletons in your closets than a backstreet undertaker.' He stated with complete solemnity.

Wolverine blinked and turned to face Scott, surprise written all over his craggy features for a split second before he grinned with feral amusement and chuffed another laugh.

'Yeah, like I said, me and Gumbo walked the same walk, talked the same talk on occasion.'

He paused to rub at the large knuckles on his equally over-sized hands. 'Way I figure it, Gumbo'd sooner swallow his own tongue then admit to bein' fucked over by Sinister – or anyone, fer that matter, but the Cajun's not stupid either. He's been livin' in a house where most o' the folks there been screwed with by their enemies somehow. He'd have told one o' us, 'Ro most likely, if that was all it was.'

Scott nodded as he'd come to the same conclusion himself. 'Jean really doesn't know more than she's said. But she thinks from what Charles wouldn't tell her, that the real sticking point is what Sinister made Gambit do to pay off the supposed debt. That's the real issue, as far as I can see. Whatever it is, Gambit's ashamed of it.'

Scott paused and smiled humourless, 'And at the risk of sounding like Warren, Gambit isn't exactly someone that strikes me as being ashamed of all that much.'

'Yeah,' Logan didn't say anything more for a long moment but previous experience told Scott not to press and wait for the other man to speak again in his own time. Presently he did, as behind their backs Rogue continued to decry the fact that the man she had been effectively shunning for the best part of two months had planned to leave without telling her.

'Rogue knows something, yer know.' Wolverine stated brows twitching as he heard perfectly every word spoken in the back of the cabin. 'Girl's hiding something and she ain't doin' it well.' The older man tapped a large, blunt tipped finger to his nose sagely, 'The nose, knows.'

'I'd guessed as much, but with Rogue, I assumed whatever it is will come out sooner or later. Like you say, she's not good at keeping things to herself.' Scott adjusted their trajectory as they neared Westchester and the mansion. Behind him he could still hear Rogue being consoled by Joseph and gently chastised by Storm who, by the sounds of it, had nearly lost all patience.

Wolverine frowned, 'Might have to force the issue, if what I think is going on is really on.'

Scott glanced at him briefly before turning his attention back to preparing for landing, 'Tell me your thoughts.'

Being a leader was about more than just barking orders; it was about listening to those under your command and recognising their insights. It was a skill Scott was always trying to improve on and he was both blessed and cursed with having a team of subordinates who were usually very willing to broadcast their insight whether Scott wanted to hear it or not.

'Been thinkin' 'bout the way Gumbo was when he first pitched up at the mansion,' the Canadian quirked a grizzled eyebrow, 'Figure that's probably the only time he was actin' genuine an' not puttin' on a con fer Rogue or anyone else.' Wolverine shook his head, 'Gumbo play acts so much I ain't sure he even knows when he's fakin' it anymore.'

'Okay, Gambit's eccentricities aside,' Scott said not wanting further discussion into the vagaries of Gambit's interpersonal relationships, which could give a psychiatrist nightmares for months, 'What significance is there in how Gambit was when he first came to the mansion, and the current situation? I mean when I first met him he was…..difficult….and he _stayed_ difficult.'

'Yeah, Gumbo's a pain in the ass,' the look in Wolverine's blue eyes suggested that he did not find this a bad thing in the least, but then Wolverine was a royal pain in the ass himself so that made sense.

'But Cyke,' the other man was saying reaching his point, 'when the Cajun first came he was out fer blood every fight we had; didn't care who he hurt so long as him and his 'Stormy' were safe.' Wolverine flexed his large hands, rubbing at the point where his claws extended thoughtfully.

'Once he figured that weren't the way the Prof liked things played he toned it down; ended up actin' like a two-bit punk most times. Hell, most o' the time _I'd_ forget Gumbo could fight 'til I pissed him off in the Danger Room and he knocked me on my ass.'

Wolverine actually chuckled at this. It was well known that the only time Wolverine and Gambit seemed able to tolerate one another for any extended period of time was when they tag-teamed to beat the living day lights out of an opponent or pummelled each other bloody in their regular sparring sessions.

Jean had a number of pertinent things to say about testosterone and 'male bonding' in regards this odd relationship but Scott had always been happy to let it slide. Primarily this was because he took the view that if the pair took out their aggression on each other Scott wouldn't have to deal with the over spill of having two 'alpha male' trouble-makers on his team butting heads.

'Okay,' he conceded the point, Gambit had altered his behaviour markedly both on and off the field when he decided to stay with the team that was a given. Still Scott didn't see the significance of this fact.

'I'm still failing to see the point,' he admitted honestly, before his lips quirked in wry half smile. 'Frankly the fact that Gambit is prepared to tone down his aggression is one of the few areas of his conduct that he gets full marks from me.'

Scott looked at Wolverine through the corner of his eye, not that the other man could see that with the visor but Wolverine could see the slight glow in the side of the visor that resulted from the shifting sightline, 'Now if I could just get _you_ to…'

'Can it Bub.' Wolverine extended his middle right hand claw in an unmistakable gesture of insubordination. Scott decided to ignore it as he really needed to land the 'Bird safely.

After a moment Wolverine shifted posture, hackles dropping. 'Took me a while to put my finger on what was screwy about Gambit; especially when I found out Gumbo was Guild.' He chuffed to himself again, 'Never met the man, but I heard o' Gumbo's old man; Jean-Luc Lebeau's one o' the best thieves in the business - has been fer years – his known for his honour as much as his skills too.'

'And?' Scott didn't pretend to understand much about 'Thieves Guilds' and the like and had given up trying. As far as he was concerned that was part of Gambit's past that should _stay_ in the past. Wolverine was watching keenly with those small, bright and shrewd blue eyes of his.

'And Gumbo don't act like he's Jean-Luc's son. Hell, Guild thieves don't fight their way outta trouble, Cyke. They don't get the kick outta a throw down the way Gumbo does. Nah, the Cajun in a snit don't act like a thief any way yer slice it; too much ripper in him.' Once more Wolverine tapped a finger to his nose, a slightly smug grin on his broad, blunt featured face. 'Figure I know what he does act like though.'

Whereas he had seen in Gambit a number of times attempts to talk or scam his way out of any number of situations, Scott had to concede that Gambit was not what he would call 'non-confrontational' either. Damn it all but the man had started enough fights with other members of the team in the last three years, that was for sure.

Scott frowned still not sure where Wolverine was going with this, 'What does he act like?'

Wolverine smiled caustically blue eyes hard, 'A Marauder, Cyke. Gumbo fights like a Marauder.'

* * *

Victor Creed broke the uneasy silence that had reigned between the two men first. He hated silence and if he couldn't shatter it with the sound of his victims screams he'd suffer through listening to the damn Cajun's molasses twang rather than the silence he despised.

'So we gonna bust the Dark Beast outta chokey; then what? Yer thinking that fucker's gonna help yer?'

Creed curled his lip contemptuously but his gaze was shrewd and evaluating, 'Even if he does know about this 'Garden' crap he won't help.'

Remy smiled as he looked up at the shifting ceiling fan meandering around and around above his head, 'Ahh m'sieur, you need to be payin' more 'ttention. Did I say anyt'ing bout askin' him for help? Non, I did not; dat's not what de bête noir's good for.'

Creed grinned a low dark chuckle spilling up from between his sharp teeth, 'You lyin' to the frail, Cajun?'

Remy pulled the ace of spades from the fold of his trench coat cuff and flipped it between first and index finger of his right hand, watching as it began to glow almost before he had thought to charge it. He smiled at the play of light and energy running through the card.

'Not lyin', jus' not showin' my full hand.'

'Summers huh?' Creed shook his head, 'The X-punks will be gunnin' fer us now, after that stunt you pulled in St Louis, an' yer crazy enough to mix the Boy Scout's kid brother into this?' The sharp canines gleamed in the dull lighting from the single ceiling bulb as Creed's grin grew even wider, 'Yer playin' with fire Cajun, and I'm gonna _enjoy_ watchin' yer get burned.'

Remy did not smile back instead he continued to play with the card of death between his fingers, his eyes fixed on Creed. 'Bait, m'sieur Tooth, bait an' distraction; need to make sure de _Boy Scout_ don' rumble de game, non? His frere a good way to keep Cyclops distracted so he don be putting de pieces together.'

'And the dark Beast?' Creed pulled a cigar from his thick winter coat and lit it with a match.

'Expendable,' Remy shrugged, pocketing the card and lighting a cigarette of his own. Creed nodded and exhaled. Remy inhaled a draught of smoke before speaking once more; the Cajun always had talked too damn much after all.

'Plus I figure he might know somet'ing useful,' the punk smiled faintly letting the smoke roll from between his teeth like a contented dragon, 'an if'n he don' den mebbe he distract Essex some as well, oui?' The smile became truly nasty, 'Sure M'sieur Essex would love to get his scalpel int' de bete noir.'

Victor Creed examined the man sitting cross legged on the bed opposite him with a cool and detached intellect many would not have imagined he possessed. Creed had never fully understood why Scalphunter had always held the punk in such high regard, or hell, even why Sinister did. The Cajun was too soft, too easily distracted by a pretty face and needy smile, to be a real player.

Now however, listening to the calm, methodical way the Cajun explained the different ways he intended to use friend and foe alike Creed was beginning to think that perhaps there _was_ a Marauder underneath the Cajun's skin after all.

Creed smiled inside; this was getting interesting. He'd wanted a challenge for his next kill and the angst ridden punk Lebeau usually pretended to be wouldn't satisfy – but the cold, calculating con-man before him, a man who was totally prepared to screw over everyone he'd ever met to get his way - yeah, Creed reckoned the Cajun could give him the challenge he craved after all.

That thought sparked another; something he'd noticed when he'd met the punk in St. Louis but not said anything about at the time. He snubbed out the spent cigar on the plastic window ledge, crinkling his nose at the acrid scent of burning plastic that precipitated the burn mark.

'Smelled Scalphunter on yer coat when we met,' he eyed the Cajun thoughtfully, 'Yer send the old boy to his maker already punk?'

The red on black gaze did not waver and did not flinch, 'De homme had it comin'.' The punk blew a smoke ring up towards the ceiling.

'And what about Dane?'

Creed thought about lighting another cigar but changed his mind. Absently he picked at the burn mark he'd made on the window casing. He was curious about what plans the Cajun had for Polaris; figured that he had to have an ulterior motive for involving the frail. Shit Lebeau had ulterior motives for everything else he did, after all.

'Touch her an' you dead homme,' Was the only answer he received in response.

Unperturbed, and secretly intrigued, Creed nevertheless gave the expected sneered reply, 'Yer and what army punk?'

Remy shook his head, 'No army, m'sieur Tooth; it not in your int'rest to be hurtin' me or Lorna. You know it an' I know it.' He smiled sharply eyes glowing with some big secret that curved the punk's lips into a cold smirk all of his own, 'Specially not when I can give you what you really want, oui?'

Creed frowned as across the room the AC unit cranked into life, sending a gust of cold air into the room despite the fact that it was only late March and the temperature did not warrant it. Neither man tore their gaze away from the other long enough to give it any mind however.

This was a meeting of minds – and a meeting of villains; villains never turned their back for a moment.

'What's that, punk?' Creed asked after a long tense moment. 'What's a dumbass like yer know about what I want?'

Remy smiled hugely leaning over to reach the cheap plastic ashtray sitting on the cheap ply-board end table by the bed and stubbing his cigarette out without once looking away from Creed.

'T'ink on it homme,' he purred persuasively. 'De X-men gon be searchin' for you, me, an' Lorna by now, oui?'

'And now yer gonna tell them right where we are with this stunt; what's that got to do with anything?' Creed demanded.

The Cajun shook his head almost pityingly and Victor Creed stiffened not liking the implication garnered from that gesture. Before he could speak however the punk started talking again, voice low and smooth and steady.

'Mon Capitan Cyclops had Cerebro on de alert for Alex since he went dark side, non?' Remy cocked his head to the side, eyes sparking the way the Serpent in Eden's eyes must have gleamed when he offered Eve the Apple. 'You t'ink dey ain't gon know de minute we start something, homme? You t'ink de Boy Scout not gon come for his petit frère?'

Creed shrugged. He would never admit it, but the Cajun's intense gaze, his silkily persuasive voice, and his smile were beginning to get to Sabretooth. 'I ain't interested in the Boy Scout.' Creed curled his lip, 'No challenge in his blood.'

Remy leaned forward, sitting Indian style on the threadbare counterpane of the bed, 'Mebbe not homme, but who you t'ink Cyclops gon bring wit' him to rumble….especially if'n he t'inkin' _you_ might be dere, eh?'

Creed blinked hard and then leaned back against the window. Before long a large, bloodthirsty smile ripped over his face.

'_Wolverine_,' he all but whispered the name, dark anticipation flavouring every syllable.

The Cajun's smile was temptation incarnate, 'Tol' you homme, I know your _price,' _the red eyes burned with a fey and dangerous light that bespoke of untold destruction to come, 'An' don't nobody can say Remy Lebeau don come up good on a debt.'


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter Eighteen: Premonition**

Night crawled towards Dawn and the rain fell, thick as a curtain, upon the mansion grounds. It was a pleasant rain, warm for the time of year and seemed to muffle the knife sharp tension that stifled all conversation and made every resident of the mansion restless and snappish.

Rogue took great pains to move as quietly, but swiftly, as she could over the back lawns of the estate towards the woodlands that bordered the mansion. It would be faster to fly, but she knew Bishop and maybe even Wolverine were patrolling tonight and they'd have an eye out for night flyers.

The trench coat bunched around her ankles, too long for her and smelling faintly musty; she'd dragged it out of the depths of Remy's closet when she'd ransacked his room earlier. The faint hint of old tobacco and road dust gave her comfort as she flipped the collar up against the rain as she'd seen him do a thousand times before.

'Whoa chere,'

Rogue stopped in mid-step; growing instantly still as the Remy shade at her side gestured for her to be silent. She watched him cock his head, almost birdlike, as he listened to something she couldn't hear. Vaguely she wondered how an extension of her own subconscious mixed with aspects of Remy's personality she had absorbed could hear anything at all, but then decided not to worry about it.

He nodded to her after a moment but placed a finger to his lips. Rogue nodded and continued onwards, so conscious of every sound she was making that a cold sweat of anxiety prickled between her shoulder blades and under her hairline.

Eventually they ended up in a small clearing, softly dappled by moonlight shadow. There was a lichen covered smooth rock in the clearing facing a shallow natural gulley. Rogue did not need to be enticed to sit down; she remembered this spot as one of Remy's favourite haunts.

From the deep pockets of the trench coat Rogue withdrew the battered pack of cards; settling on the wet grass, long coat flaring out around her, Rogue began to lay out the hand of cards across the weathered stone.

'How should ah do this sugar?'

She asked the shade as he reclined on his elbows on the grass opposite her on the other side of the rock. His appearance had changed again; instead of the sharp suit and red diamond cufflinks (his Marauder look as Rogue had come to associate it in her own mind) he looked the most like 'her' Remy she had ever seen. He wore a twin of the trench coat she wore as well as a battered pair of hiking boots, a savagely worn and torn pair of old jeans, and a white muscle top that had perhaps more holes in it than cloth. His hair was wild and wind tossed and his chin and jaw were coated in at least a days worth of stubble. He looked like a two-bit drifter and scoundrel and it made her smile.

He smiled back at her and this smile was her Remy's smile too; warm and jovial without the bite of caustic cynicism the shade usually showed towards her. Rogue chose to look at this not as wish fulfilment on her part but as a sign that she was on the right track; if the shade was pleased with her then she must be doing the right thing for the real Remy, right?

'Anyway you like chere.' He shrugged in answer to her question still reclining at his leisure on the wet grass like it was a designer divan and he was waiting for a roaming photographer to come and take his picture. 'It's not de order dat counts, but de doin'.'

He tapped the cards she had already slapped down on the rock in no particular order or design, 'Jus' let dem cards fall chere, an' we see where dey take us, oui?'

Rogue frowned down at the mostly full deck she still held in her hands and then to the few cards scattered over the rock. 'It's not the order, but the doing?'

'Oui,' he smiled at her again, a Mona Lisa smile that said everything and nothing all at once. He reached out to touch the back of her hand with his fingers, and even though she knew it wasn't possible she could _feel _the warmth of his fingers through her gloves. She shivered and dropped down a card pulled randomly from the middle of the pack.

The two of hearts fell onto the jack of diamonds, which in turn lay halfway across the ace of clubs. There was no reason or message behind that random trio, yet as she looked down at those cards Rogue felt a quiver of something in the back of her mind; almost a compulsion. Her fingers twitched with the desire to throw down another card for no other reason than to see what it would be.

'Dat's it, chere,' the shade whispered and his voice was rich as melted chocolate and whispered secrets in dark places. 'Play de hand chere, got to see what dey cards be showin'; got to let Maman luck show us what she got in store….'

With the Remy shade murmuring syrup rich encouragement Rogue continued to throw down card after card, not following any suit or rhythm, and as she did so the faces of the cards blurred and swayed under her eyes.

Instead of traditional playing card images printed onto waxed cardboard Rogue saw something else entirely…….a scene of horror that would stay with her forever more.

* * *

Time stood still in the Garden; minutes became hours and seconds stretched into lifetimes. The huge hollow cavern torn out of the rock and grit of the Earth was filled with harsh and unforgiving light; a cavity that ached with emptiness yet shivered with the spectre of life.

Vines of fibreoptic cords and sinuous cable wove and twinned around the huge support pillars holding each level of the circular tower, which dominated this shadowed place, upright. Thick branches of data strands dangled down from the lofty heights of the ceiling; a parody of the majestic, Spanish Moss draped Live Oaks of the Bayou.

Flashing like neon fireflies in the dark shadows of the cavern, the names of mutants, past, present, and future twinkled into life and then vanished from sight; teasing phantasms in this monstrous Eden.

The air was redolent with the acrid scent of man made metal alloys, burning electrical elements and the thick, pungent aroma of the roses that bloomed, like splashes of blood, from every available space in this horrible, unnatural paradise.

Time stood still as one man realised his had come to its end; his race was run. He was now dead - and he hadn't even seen the final blow coming.

Remy Lebeau looked down at the three, foot long, bone claws protruding from his chest and wondered why it was that he felt no pain. Somewhere above his head lightning danced over cables and silicon threads; a goddess screaming for vengeance.

Still caught on those claws he turned his head to look down and round at the man whose claws had impaled him. He could feel the solid press of the man's closed fist shoved up against his middle back. Wolverine's eyes were hard and clear as he retracted those deceptively delicate looking claws back into his forearm.

'Yer done Cajun,'

Remy's knees gave way as the claws tore passage back out of his body; he could feel it as shards of bone, fine as chips of China, remained embedded in his internal organs. He landed heavily on the compacted black earth floor. He looked down in wonder at the blood covering his shirt in a warm, wet deluge.

The thunderous cacophony that had been driving him to distraction, that wild and tumultuous press of time and motion, had ceased. It was peaceful now; all was silence inside and out.

He raised one hand to his chest, fingers already growing cold. A gout of blood and thicker, darker, things forced its way up his throat from his saturated lungs and dribbled down his chin as he looked up at Wolverine, Cyclops, Phoenix, his beloved Stormy, and Bishop.

In that fragile, endless, second he had left to him, Remy Lebeau looked into the faces of those that had taken his life and passed judgement on his soul; not a one shed a tear for him. Not the ever compassionate Jean Grey, not his Stormy whom he adored like no other; no one wept for him.

'Thank you,' he whispered.

The world shivered around him; it felt like the ground had been torn up underneath his feet and he was now falling fast down a sheer, featureless tunnel – but it did not grow dark behind his eyes as the world escaped his grasp. Instead he saw colour and light enough to make his shredded heart burst anew. He looked into infinity and saw the constant cycle of renewal; he caught a glimpse of heaven as he spiralled down through the rings of hell.

Remy Lebeau smiled and died.

* * *

Lorna Dane stared at the man she had committed herself to since she was nineteen years old. He was sitting on a rock, shoulders hunched in a slouch, which suggested either a guilty conscience, deep thought, or both. The fingers of one hand rubbed at a worn patch over the knee of his right jeans leg and his right foot tapped in agitated fashion over the scraggy, hard packed ground.

His severe hair cut was not to her tastes (she doubted it was to his either, but then he had always been refreshingly lacking in vanity). He had not noticed her approach yet, she knew that if he had he would already have leapt up to face her; that distraction gave Lorna the opportunity to study him some more. He looked better than he had the last time she had seen him, but then again the last time she had seen him he had been trying to kill her.

Lorna sighed as she set down on the ground just behind him. Alex reacted just as she knew he would. He turned; jerking around sharply to see what intruder was coming for his back, saw her, his eyes grew wide and he leapt clumsily to his feet.

It was only minutes from dawn and the sky was already a deep, thrumming orange; the damp pale of spent rain still hung in the air. Lorna had always thought it was odd that the sky was brighter just before the sun burst free of the horizon than at any other time in the day. It was a strange time; not night and yet not day, perpetually caught between the two polar opposites. Sort of like she and Alex.

It seemed to Lorna as she faced him now that they had spent most of their adult lives forced onto opposing sides; if he wasn't on the wrong side, then she was, and always they were trying to fight their way back to the other. She wondered was it defeatism to give up trying this time, or merely long overdue maturity?

'Lorna.'

'Polaris,' she corrected him calmly, standing with her hands fisted to her hips. She had always worried that the pose made her seem too masculine, but right now she didn't care. It wouldn't hurt a bit for Alex to fear her. 'Or even Malice; let's keep this professional _Havok_.'

She saw his surprise paint his features as the first rays of orange tinted sunlight slipped over the quiet woodland clearing. She watched as his lips pursed together, she saw him parse out her reasoning and come to terms with it.

He nodded, 'Polaris, then.'

He looked away from her towards the dawning sun. She watched him blink defiantly straight into that light. For just a moment she merely looked at him. The tight jaw, the squinted eyes, the long sharp nose; if Alex wanted to he could turn as many heads as a natural charmer like Remy Lebeau did, but Alex was oblivious to that. He would no more know how to use his physical charms than Lorna would her own. It was one of the things that had first her attracted her to Alex – he was as uncomfortable in his own skin as she was in hers.

'Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?' he asked her finally once the sun had taken up her seat of prominence above their heads.

'You can ask,' she shrugged she wasn't giving anything away in this exchange. Once more Alex looked at her for a long moment. The thoughtful, serious look made her heart ache. It was so typically Alex.

'Okay fine,' he jammed his hands into the pockets of his open jacket, 'I suppose I can't really expect more from you Lo….._Polaris,' _he corrected himself swiftly. He glanced at her almost sheepishly before turning back to frown at the sun. 'I wanted to ask about Gambit.'

Lorna didn't pretend to be surprised by this. Alex was like Scott when it came to sticky emotional issues, if it could be avoided he would make damn sure it was. 'What do you want to know?'

Alex seemed to be giving her a puzzled look, as if confused by something she had said or done; or maybe it was wishful thinking on Lorna's part that he was thinking about her at all. 'He's not with Scott's team anymore then?'

'No, he quit to take care of this.' Over their heads a flock of Starlings chittered in the trees. Lorna tried not to show her annoyance; born in the city the sound of birdsong had always grated on her nerves.

Alex raised both his eyebrows and settled back down on the rock, '_This _being a rebellion against Sinister?' By sitting down Alex was making a deliberate gesture of good will. He wasn't exactly less dangerous sitting down, but it would be easier for him to fire a plasma blast standing up. 'Does Scott know Gambit's involved with Sinister?'

Lorna shrugged, 'He might be figuring it out now, but the only person Gambit told about his involvement with Sinister and the Marauders, was me.'

She watched keenly to see what reaction this news might incite in Alex, but whether because he no longer felt a thing for her or because he was trying his best not to react, he gave her nothing in response.

'I see,' was all he said pensive frown upon his brow. Lorna stifled the contrary emotion that response evoked in her. In some ways she was more angry with herself and her ridiculous hope he'd be jealous than him. For all her talk of being an emancipated woman she was just so God damned _needy_.

Alex looked up at her, shading his eyes with one hand as the rock he perched on was swathed in soft golden light. 'Do you trust him?'

Lorna thought about this seriously. As much as she liked Gambit, and she did like him personally, she had any number of serious reservations about his actions. She considered her words carefully.

* * *

The ace of clubs sat underneath a messy train of cards upon the motel bed, the jack of diamonds acting as uncomfortable bedfellow and the two of hearts sandwiched between the jack and the king of spades. Remy Lebeau did not blink, or so much as twitch, as he threw down another card on top. He did not look to see from where in the shuffled pack he pulled the card; it did not matter. It wasn't the order, but the doing; that was the trick. He had to keep playing the cards no matter what.

On the other side of the windowpane Dawn was rising; light began to pour through the dirty windowglass. A new day was upon him, but Remy Lebeau could not spare the time now to note it. Time was a malleable thing; it was neither here nor there but instead everywhere and nowhere at once. Much like Remy Lebeau himself as he threw down yet another card and waited to see where it would take him………

* * *

'Goddess have mercy but I will_ stop_ you.'

The walkway platform was rocked by gale force winds and hailstones the size of quarters pounded into the metal plates pulverising into a slurry of ice and slush. Lightning tore up the darkness in this subterranean garden and the winds dragged up swathes of rose petals in their wake.

Remy Lebeau dived for cover as the goddess above him sent a bolt of lightning streaking into, and through, the metal railings of the walkway. He tumbled down the metal stairs, protecting his head as best he could as he fell, and the electric current seared through the metal seeking the fastest route to earth itself.

Crashing to a stop on the next floor down in Sinister's skeletal tower, Remy felt the shock wave of pain, immediate and jarring, as his right wrist snapped from the bad fall. Staggering to his feet he pulled the useless arm up to his chest and peered, through narrowed eyes, at the rage filled goddess who floated alongside the tower of metal and filament.

He stared into the tempest of white within her blind eyes; he looked his fill as the Windrider condemned him utterly.

'My friend would not do this; you are _not_ my friend!'

A localised blast of air knocked him from his feet and snatched all the breath from his lungs. He flew backwards tucking in his body and twisting to protect himself; his feet smacked into the cavern wall facing one side of Sinister's very own Tower of Babel. He absorbed the impact and used it to leap back into the fray, an arc of cards flying free towards the vision of vengeful beauty trying to kill him.

Gale force winds, trailing scarlet petals like blood drops in the very air, deflected his cards away from their regal mistress. Lightning seared the darkness once more, flashing like the brightest strobes scoring through his body and burning out his vision. Remy Lebeau cried out at the pain and collapsed to one knee; it could not have hurt more if she'd struck him directly with her lightning bolts.

'You must be stopped; for the good of all, _you must be stopped_.'

The winds screamed and Sinister's tower roared; metal screeched against its less than stable moorings and the tower was suddenly as precarious as a house of cards in the breeze.

Remy stumbled back; black and white after images eating at his vision and stealing his equilibrium. Hail scratched at him as sharp and cold as needles of ice; blood from a dozen cuts wept down the contours of his face. Helplessly he leaned into the force of the wind, reaching……reaching……

Thunder snarled through the cavern, shaking the Garden to its roots and branches. Somewhere above his head in the higher reaches of the tower something exploded as a dozen bolts of lightning, thrown with the precision of Zeus himself, shattered the structure. A support strut twisted, buckled, and collapsed.

Time stood still in the Garden; minutes became hours and seconds stretched into lifetimes. The tower swayed, groaned like a great stricken beast, and toppled over. Blinded by the radiance of a goddess' fury Remy Lebeau was thrown hard enough to crush ribs into the railings as the ground lurched up to meet him.

The goddess' proclamation rang out over the rose tinted gales.

'Bright Lady preserve you - for I shall not.'

The fall did not take long and the ground was as unforgiving as he had expected. The screech and squeal of tearing, broken metal smashing into rock and cable, the liquid pops and whisper of fire, and the thunder claps of explosions merged into a haunting, tumultuous crescendo.

Remy Lebeau fell to hell and it was as hot, hard, and painful as he had always imagined it would be. He felt the shivering ice heat as his spine snapped and blood from a massive fracture, began to leak into his brain. All of a sudden all was still and all was silent in the Garden.

He stared up at the depths of shadow above him from a cage of twisted metal and knew he was broken beyond repair. Rose petals fell like bloody tears upon his face. A trickle of blood, hot and scolding, forced its way from between his lips. He could hear his heart labouring.

The goddess with white eyes, haloed by her silvered hair, the lengths of which were snarled with petals also, looked down at him from the darkened heavens. Her tears made no sense to him, but he appreciated the sentiment.

'Thank you,' he whispered thickly as he drowned in blood.

The world shivered around him; it felt like the ground had been torn up underneath his feet and he was now falling fast down a sheer, featureless tunnel – but it did not grow dark behind his eyes as the world escaped his grasp. Instead he saw colour and light enough to make his crushed heart burst anew. He looked into infinity and saw the constant cycle of renewal; he caught a glimpse of heaven as he spiralled down through the rings of hell.

Remy Lebeau smiled and died.

* * *

'I trust Gambit's intentions, but I don't trust his methods.' Lorna finally admitted; the most honest answer she could give.

'Good,' Alex said as he rose from the rock, dusted off his jeans and made to leave the clearing.

Lorna frowned, 'Good? That's all you have to say?'

Alex's lips actually quivered into his slightly bashful, lop-sided grin, 'I trust you Lorna, and I trust your judgement.'

She stared at him, not sure what to think and finding herself strangely angry. Did he think her so little threat to him? Was he really that sure she'd already forgiven him for what he did to her? Was that what this was?

'Don't you think that's a little careless? I might be setting you up to be killed by Gambit – or even Creed.' She regretted the angry words as soon as they were out of her mouth; especially when they simply provoked a wider smile from Alex.

'Yeah maybe,' he turned fully to face her, sunlight limning his body and catching on that crooked grin, 'but I didn't ask because of me. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.'

'What?' Lorna closed her hands into fists at her sides. Did he think she was helpless without his protection, was that it? She opened her mouth to tell him exactly what she thought of that assumption when he beat her to the punch.

'If you want to kill me Lorna, then I guess I have it coming.' He told her seriously, 'I trust you, like I said. If you screw me over, well hey, that's life. I'm just glad we got the chance to talk.'

'Alex…?'

He raised a hand to forestall her, 'What happened at the Sentinel plant,' he began dropping his gaze for a second before deliberately looking back up and locking his eyes on hers, 'I'm not going to insult you by feeding you some line about it being the brainwashing and all that crap. I hope that you know that I'd never rationally or intentionally try and hurt you….but, hey, we've been down this road so many times already that it's getting old.'

Lorna's heart seemed to have lodged in her oesophagus. She swallowed hard, 'Alex - whose side are you on now?'

His broken smile quirked his lips again, 'My side,' he told her frankly. Lorna just stared at him; this was not the answer she had expected.

'Scott's way doesn't work for me,' Alex continued, 'Xavier cracked trying to live up to his own Dream; I'm not working for any crazy doppelganger or supervillain bent on world domination either. I'm just out for myself.'

Lorna could not think of a single thing to say to that. The Alex Summers she had known would never be so bluntly selfish, so honestly ruthless. She stared into his eyes and realised that they really were strangers to each other. As if coming to the same conclusion Alex nodded his head once.

'I suppose there's nothing left to say,' but he was still watching her with faintly sad, serious eyes, his crookedly smile ghosted to life for an instant melancholy and oddly sweet. He held something out to her; a strip of worn velvet with an old, enamelled face upon it. Almost without making a conscious decision to do so, Lorna reached out and took the choker from his hands.

Her fingers brushed his as she took the choker and she looked up into his resolute but still saddened eyes.

'For what it's worth; I'm glad we've got the chance to work together again.'

Lorna said nothing as Alex left her then, with a smile and a faint wave. She watched him walk through the trees with head high and realised that he was right. He'd broken free of a yoke that had made him nothing but miserable - and he'd done it by facing, and embracing, the demon inside his skin.

Lorna looked down at the fake Malice choker in her palm, the sunlight playing over the vicious snarling smile scything across the enamelled face.

When she had met Gambit in Washington D.C. he had called them both 'the Devil's own'. For the first time she felt that she finally understood what he meant. Polaris smiled and carefully fastened the repaired Malice choker around her throat.

'Thank you,' she whispered to bitter circumstance that had controlled her life for so long, and to the men and women she had allowed dominion over her mind and actions. She smiled into the sunrise.

It was time to set the wild things free.

* * *

Time stood still in the Garden; minutes became hours and seconds stretched into lifetimes. The huge hollow cavern torn out of the rock and grit of the Earth was filled with harsh and unforgiving light; a cavity that ached with emptiness yet shivered with the spectre of life.

Above the roses of the Garden, framed by the dark rock of the walls, an angel of death passed judgement.

'…….You're despicable; you're worse than Sabretooth.'

Smoke rose from a hundred small fires, the flames dancing and winking at him across the shadows like pyreflies. The air was thick with burning cables and melted metals. Under his feet the roses lay crushed; red petals smeared like blood across the black soil.

Remy looked up at the angel above him and smiled.

'Have you come to kill me, Archangel?'

The sky blue face of the high flying Angel twisted in contempt and open disgust, 'I wouldn't demean myself that way; you're not worth killing.'

Laughter to greet that condemnation; he looked down once more watching as his blood falls to soak the fertile soil of hell.

'D'accord,' he whispers swaying on his feet as his life ebbs away from a thousand little wounds; a thousand weeping sorrows that will find no absolution in this life or any other. He looked up again after a moment with shrewd amusement.

'Den, Ange, you got no business in dis place.' He smiled as the other man continued to simply stare at him, 'Ain't you got somet'ing more worthwhile to be doin' homme?'

Hatred blazes in steely eyes within that unnatural blue face; white wings shudder with the effort to keep him aloft and the angel comes to rest upon the twisted cage of metal that was once Sinister's tower.

'_D' accord_; is that all you have to say for yourself?'

The angel spits at him through the acrid smoke that cracks their voices and fills their lungs with poisonous heat. Flames begin to devour the roses as the tree of knowledge weeps the secrets of an entire race upon the scorched earth; the Devil's work broken and bleeding in the shadows.

'Do you have no remorse; do you even care about the lives you've ruined and the damage you've done?'

Vilification is too soft a word for the feeling that pours from those words; if it was possible to do so, Remy Lebeau would find himself crucified upon the rack of Angel's scorn and hate.

'For fuck's sake, _say_ something you fucking backwards hick!'

Alas it was not that simple and in the end the vitriol unleashed upon him from Angel's lofty height as the Devil's paradise burns was nothing more than words. Just like 'forgive me' was nothing more than words; meaningless syllables addressed to the dead and gone who could not grant forgiveness even if they had wished too.

Therefore Remy Lebeau chose to say nothing. He had hoped his blood and sweat and tears for Xavier's cause would stand in his defence; he had hoped he would be judged on his own merits, not on acts that he had never had any power to stop to begin with. He was wrong, he could accept that now, but he would not debase himself before an angel who had no concept of forgiveness in his narrow, fearful mind.

'What the hell is wrong with you? You should be on your fucking knees begging the X-men to forgive you, you fucked up retard!' The angel continued to spit curses upon him but Remy stopped listening; they were only words after all and he had never cared for what _this _angel had to say to him.

It's all a waste of breath in the end; a waste of effort. The game was rigged from the start.

Sinners go to hell and Angels, even spoiled, conceited and cold minded ones with hard blue faces, rule in heaven. Those are the rules of the game after all, and Remy smiled to himself; if that's what heaven was Worthington could keep it. Sinner and damned he might be, but Remy Lebeau had his pride, even here in hell.

Remy Lebeau turned his back on the angel then; the man's words do not touch him, coming from a place he does not recognise. Heaven has never had dominion over him. He is not welcome there and never has been.

He watched as the roses wither and blacken; phosphor fire, green as envy and hungry as greed, seeps across the floor towards him. The air tastes like blood; hot, rich and vital.

'God damn it, you deserve what you get. I'm through trying to help you; fucking rot in hell traitor.'

An updraft of air and the clap of feathers heralded Archangel's departure. Heaven has left him to his fate. C'est bon, he thought the asshole would never leave.

'Thank you,' a caustic whisper, ironic to the very end; defiant in his pyrrhic victory.

He smiled holding his arms out at his sides as if he too would fly away - and in a moment he would. He let his own charge sear through his veins; turning blood to energy and remorse to nothing more than light and friction in the fires of the Garden.

Like blood from open wounds his charge fell to the Garden floor and chased forward to meet the phosphor glow of the mechanical fires before clawing onwards, building momentum as it went. Soon all was light and energy; hell glowing as bright as the brightest star in the heavens.

It was beautiful and dreadful all at once and there was no one there to witness it.

Time stood still in the garden; minutes became hours and seconds stretched into lifetimes. The huge hollow cavern torn out of the rock and grit of the Earth became filled with a vibrant and gently rippling light; the Garden was radiant with the light of life for the first and only time.

Remy Lebeau smiled, all was quiet and still within and without as he released his chokehold upon the power inside. The world exploded in light and shadow.

The sinner died - and he took hell with him.

* * *

The mutant known only as Threnody opened her eyes to a scene she was well accustomed to. A sterile white room, too bright fluorescent lights, the faint scent of metal, chemicals, and disinfectant was so familiar to her that she noted it only vaguely.

It was only after she had registered all that was familiar that she found herself confronted by that which was anything but familiar. There was a pillow - no _two _pillows – propped under her head and a warm blanket pulled up over her body to keep her warm. There were needles stuck in her but she was not restrained. She lay in a real bed, albeit one in a lab of some sort, and something reminiscent of an oxygen tent rose above her like a transparent canopy.

Threnody did not understand; the doctor had never shown her this much care before.

Threnody raised one hand and batted, experimentally, at the strange material draped over her bed. It was clear like plastic but felt like gauze netting and twinkled with the finest threads of some strange pearlescent wires that reminded her of fibreoptics but which she knew were anything but.

Inside her head all was quiet; she did not hear the death throes of hundreds pressing against her ears. So unaccustomed was she to the respite from the pain of others that Threnody jerked upwards in fright; or at least tried to.

'Oho – my dear Threnody you have awakened I take it.'

A jovial voice bounced into the room followed by an equally ebullient seeming large blue furred man in a stretched white lab coat. Threnody barely dared to hope.

'Doctor McCoy?' her voice was a thread; dry and broken.

A large blue face split open in a huge grin and a multitude large, blunt white teeth filled her vision. 'Indeed, indeed! You are correct in your identification my good woman; now can you tell me who you are?'

Threnody did not really see the necessity of this, Doctor McCoy had already given her name after all, but she would happily oblige him in anything he asked of her -especially if it meant that she was truly now in his care and not Mr Sinister's.

'I am Threnody.'

She looked around and tried to sit up again; her muscles felt like water and she wondered what was in the I.V. feeding into her left hand. Giving up trying to rise she raised one hand in a vague gesture towards the blue furred X-Man who had once chosen to hand her over to an enemy rather than treat her himself.

'Dr McCoy - am I safe now?'

For a man who resembled a blue gorilla more readily than a man Dr McCoy's face was one of the most expressive and eloquent Threnody had ever seen. His every emotion seemed to shine from his bright and endlessly kind eyes. Now she saw pain and grief in those eyes and wondered what had caused it.

'Yes my dear - it is my fervent desire to see that you are safe and well from this day forth.' The man reached out to her, his large furred hand with its short black nails resting lightly over the translucent film keeping the rest of the world at bay. Shimmers of iridescent light rippled over the sheeting at his touch. Threnody placed her hand up against the shield, which she recognised in some vague way must be the reason she could not hear the voices anymore.

'Then you will keep me, doctor? I do not have to return to Mr Sinister?' she asked him tremulously.

Dr McCoy's eyes closed on a wealth of pain and something fine and bright lit inside Threnody when she realised that he grieved for her.

'Forgive me Threnody for what my selfish, thoughtless, action all those months ago has wrought upon you. I swear to you on my oath as a physician and an X-man, you shall never be forced to return to Sinister again.'

The eyes of Dr McCoy were an ocean of goodness Threnody had dreamed of every night during her tenure with Sinister. It was a dream she had not imagined would ever come to pass to find herself here now with the man she had always hoped would come back for her one day.

Threnody smiled for the first time in years and said the only words she could think to say, 'Thank you.'

* * *

'Thank you.' A whisper broken free of bloodless lips, dragged from a throat drawn closed in delirium.

Remy Lebeau looked down at the splay of haphazard cards lying across the counterpane of the bed. That was it; the last card had been thrown down and there was nothing left to see.

Taking a deep breath or three he looked around at the prosaically normal surroundings of the motel room. He swept a sheaf of sweat dampened hair from his forehead and dropped back down onto the flat pillow heavy as a stone. Maybe now he could sleep?

Closing his eyes he clenched his fist in the fabric of the t-shirt he wore; his heart was still hammering with the memory, so terribly real, of what it felt like to be skewered by Wolverine's claws. He saw again, behind his eyelids, the lightning rage in Stormy's eyes as she threw him down to hell. Eyes still closed he could recall, in vivid Technicolor, every shade of red Essex's roses had been. He could still hear the echo of Worthington's contempt like acid burning to the marrow of his bones.

From the dimensions of Sinister's Garden, to the scolding copper choking him as his mouth filled with his own blood, he swallowed whole every detail of the things he had seen in the falling cards.

Dredging his mind for details that could help him locate the Garden Remy absently crossed himself, whispering the old prayers in Latin that he had not dared let slip from his lips in so very long.

His prayer was a simple one: please don't let it be only a vision. If only he could believe that the images he had seen through the cards were true portents of what was to come; a real vision of what fate had in store. He squeezed closed his burning eyes on tears of exhaustion he refused to shed.

If only he could believe, in his tired broken soul, that soon he would be free.

* * *

Rogue bowed her head and wept, but still her fingers threw down card after card; the deck was not done yet and she had to finish the game now she had started. Had to; there was no choice.

The Joker, the wild card of the deck, fell down upon the unruly stack as the rain, like a mist of sorrow, saturated her hair and stroked over her limbs. The Remy shade was gone leaving her no solace to deal with what she had seen in the cards.

Between sobs the queen of hearts skidded down onto of the Joker followed by the jack of clubs, the queen of spades, and the seven of diamonds. There it was done; there were no more cards left.

Through the veil of rain the dawn sky shivered with colour; the clouds parting gilted with gold in anticipation of the sun yet to show her face upon the day. Rogue did not see this; her head bowed low she could see only that which the final fall of cards showed her.

If only she could believe, in her desperate soul, that she could save him.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter Nineteen: Persuasion**

Facility Beta-Star didn't look particularly remarkable; a quadrangle shaped flat roofed building set into acres of dull farmland like a cookie cutter left in dough it screamed 'government' and 'top secret' with its conspicuous dullness alone.

Lorna sighed and shifted her weight from one foot to the other as she looked down on the facility where the Dark Beast was captive from the incline of one of the many surrounding hills.

'I've always wondered why the government gives all its top secret facilities ridiculous names. I mean they might as well put up a huge billboard saying: 'you bet your ass there's something weird going on here'.'

Both Alex and Remy chuckled softly at her attempt at levity; Fatale merely glared at her and Sabretooth just sneered. Lorna traded deadly looks with Fatale for a moment and ignored Creed.

'So, I don't mean to step on any toes here,' Alex spoke up shading his eyes from the mid-morning sun as he looked down at the facility. 'But is there a plan or are we doing the usual X-men thing of going in powers blazing and hoping for the best?'

Lorna glanced over at Alex and smiled caustically, 'Oh I don't think the X-men have the patent when it comes to a lack of forethought.'

Alex grinned at her. There was still tension between them, made worse by the presence of the odious Fatale, but for the moment she and Alex had set all that stuff aside to get on with business.

Crouched between the two of them Remy Lebeau snorted a sour laugh in agreement and threw his cigarette butt into the wind, where it exploded with a pink pop. He rose smoothly to his feet.

'Ain't usually in favour o' de direct approach,' he said meditatively, 'Took me long enough to get used to de way Cyclops an' mon professeur do t'ings, dat's sure enough.' He glanced between Lorna and Alex, 'Ain't much o' one for givin' orders either.'

Alex's lips twitched, 'Well seeing as this is your plan in the first place that could be a problem.' He pointed dryly and his words were greeted by a wide grin from Gambit.

'Non, mon ami,' the Cajun demurred brightly, 'we all here for our own reasons, oui? Way I see it, we got an objective in common but our strengths be diff'rent.' Gambit smiled slyly. 'You do your t'ing an' I do mine; whoever gets to le Bête Noir firs' can keep him, non?'

Alex blinked in total surprise, 'Christ, I just bet Scott hates you; that kind of attitude is total anathema to him.'

Lorna choked back a laugh but Gambit didn't even try; laughter merry and bright rippled out over the sun drenched early spring afternoon.

'Mebbe, homme, mebbe,' Gambit sobered a little but only so much that he could wink at Alex, 'He prob'ly gon hate me after dis though.' He paused tone becoming a little less jovial, 'Not gon be too fond of you either, come to mention it.'

Alex smiled, 'Here's hoping; I'm feeling the need to act out against dear big bro.'

Gambit beamed and clapped Alex on the shoulder, 'Shoulda joined X-factor me, like you better den your frère, dat for sure.'

Alex looked amused, 'No offence Gambit but I'd have killed you in the first five minutes if you'd been on my team - I have a sense for this sort of thing.'

Gambit snickered not remotely offended and seeming to be in high spirits; peculiarly high considering what was at stake, but then Lorna had already come to the conclusion that Remy Lebeau was a man who marched to the beat of his own drum. Hell she amended the thought; it was more like he had his own marching band with cheerleaders and ticker tape parade.

Creed had run out of patience, 'Are yer pansies gonna coo at each other all day, or are we gonna do this?'

Lorna frowned absently flexing her fingers to manipulate the blood flow in Creed's brain. The feral man snarled at her, clawed fingers twitching uselessly. Lorna smiled at him.

'What's the matter Creed, are you having carnage withdrawal symptoms? Poor Baby but you're just right out of luck aren't you?' she looked at him hard, 'You are helpless without me, remember?'

Creed's lips skinned back from his teeth in a feral hiss and he tensed. Gambit stepped physically between them, an incredibly dangerous thing to do even with Creed unable to use his claws or teeth to harm anyone. Sabretooth had at least sixty pound and almost a foot's height advantage on Gambit, after all.

'Let de pussy-cat off his leash, mademoiselle,' he held his a collection of throwing knifes between his fingers.

Lorna frowned at him, 'If I de-activate the chip completely there'll be nothing to stop Creed killing the human guards in the compound.' Not to mention, because Creed did not need to know, but Lorna could not keep activating and de-activating the chip on and off while also concentrating on defending herself and the others. Her control was not that great, and Gambit knew this.

'Don worry Lorna, M'sieur Tooth not gon be huntin' soldier boys today.' Gambit turned to look at Creed who remained in a predator's crouch on the other side of him. 'He got bigger fish to fry, ain't dat right homme?'

A weight of things unspoken seemed to pass between Gambit and Creed and Lorna did not like it one bit. After a long, taut moment, Creed seemed to settle back on his haunches, hackles visibly lowering. He grinned nastily, 'Sure punk; so long as yer keep yer end of the bargain.'

'Bargain; what bargain….?' Gambit raised a hand silencing Lorna's questions. There was a very serious expression on his face though his ever-present shades kept her from seeing his eyes. 'Trust me mademoiselle, you don' want to know.'

'Yes I think I _do_ want to know,' Lorna glared hotly not appreciating the tone or the implication; she thought that she had made it clear to Gambit that she was not to be kept in the dark. 'I'm not just going to just…' she stopped once again when Alex reached out a hand and placed it on her shoulder. She turned to him.

'Let's just do this, okay?' he looked at each person in turn but especially Lorna, 'We're not playing by the old rules anymore.'

Lorna started to argue but the patronising smile Fatale gave her silenced her. She clenched her fists at her sides and looked straight at Gambit. 'We are going to talk about this later, got that _Monsieur_ Lebeau?' she ground out through clenched teeth.

He smiled at her faintly and gave a flourishing bow, 'D'accord Mademoiselle,' his eyes flashed mischievously over the rim of his sunglasses, 'of course we got to survive first, non?'

Before Lorna could say anything further Gambit turned from her, coat tails flaring around his long legs as he gestured grandly with his fistful of knives towards the Beta-Star facility.

'Alors mes braves; let's go have us some fun!'

* * *

Joseph had been waiting for his moment for a small eternity; he suspected that the object of his morning wait had been deliberately trying to avoid him. The thought concerned him; he just could not imagine what he had done to deserve such treatment.

Still, coming out of the women's sub basement changing room after a solo training session, Rogue had no opportunity to evade Joseph, who was waiting for her standing against the opposing hallway wall.

Rogue walked out of the sliding metallic door with a thoughtful frown on her face; she looked for all the world as if she was listening to someone even though no one else was around. Even as Joseph drew breath to speak Rogue's lips parted and her head turned as if she was about to say something in retort to some rebuke only she could hear.

Joseph cleared his throat to draw attention to himself; 'Rogue - we must talk.'

'Whhaa!' Rogue yelped and leapt back as if Joseph had just lunged at her dropping her small toiletry bag in the process. Joseph deftly caught the bag in a magnetic bubble, using the metal in the zipper as his focus. Rogue stared at him wide eyed and pressed her hand to her chest, 'Lord Joseph ya just about scared me ta death! Didn't anyone evah tell ya not to sneak up on folks?'

Joseph looked down at his feet chastened as he floated the bag into Rogue's hands, 'Forgive me, I did not mean to startle you.'

'Shut up, sugar! Ah'm tryin' ta have a conversation.'

Joseph looked back up sharply as he caught the under the breath admonishment Rogue seemed to have addressed to the thin air just passed Joseph's shoulder. He noticed that she was glaring at that empty patch of air intently. Confused Joseph looked over his shoulder just to make sure there was nothing there. There was indeed nothing there.

Joseph grew concerned; Rogue had been greatly affected by all the drama around Gambit's departure – perhaps the strain was beginning to tell? He reached out to touch her shoulder gently, 'Rogue, are you feeling unwell?'

Rogue blinked at him, shying away from his touch (something she had only started to do recently). 'Ah? Wha'?' She frowned at him green eyes finally focusing on him for the first time; she narrowed those eyes at him sharply.

'What are ya _implyin'_ Joseph?'

Joseph flushed, 'I -no, no, I was not implying anything I was merely -'

Rogue was not paying attention however; instead her emerald gaze had narrowed like a laser upon that innocuous patch of empty air just beyond his right shoulder once again.

'Ah thought ah told ya ta shut it, sugar; this ain't funny!'

Joseph was no longer concerned; no, he was very much unnerved now, 'Rogue?'

He waited until the young woman who had shown him so much kindness since he had left the South American jungle once again transferred her attention back to him. She seemed somewhat annoyed.

'What?'

Joseph paused to consider the best way to approach this issue; he thought that a certain amount of delicacy and tact might be required.

'Well, Rogue,' he began diffidently, struggling with the truly surreal feeling that he ought to be able to hear someone laughing themselves sick behind his back.

'I wished to speak with you. Recent events have been difficult for you; Gambit's departure, the incident with the girl Threnody…….I am concerned that you might need….some….._assistance_, perhaps from Dr McCoy, to best…_cope_…with the situation.'

He licked his lips, well aware that he had not tackled the problem that well at all. Rogue looked at him blankly. Then she frowned and reached out a gloved hand to touch his elbow.

'Joseph, hon,' she began in gentle tones, her gaze sympathetic, 'Ah ain't got the faintest clue what ya on about; Beast cleared me for active duty. Why would ah go on back to the lab if ah ain't sick?' Her expression became sharper as she looked Joseph up and down, 'but ya look kinda peaky yaself hon, maybe _ya_ should see Beast?'

Joseph opened and then closed his mouth, only realising no sound had come out when his teeth clicked together sharply. 'Me?'

He stared at the woman before him. A woman he had come to know as a brave, plain spoken and passionate woman – but one who remained an enduring mystery to him; especially right now.

'Rogue - I am not the one telling thin air to shut up.' He pointed out, giving up on delicacy as it seemed to have failed spectacularly.

Rogue stared at him uncomprehending for a second, 'Ah ain't been talkin' ta…' she stopped and a brilliant scarlet blush rose up her graceful neck to paint over her cheeks and crawl up her forehead. She bit her lip nervously.

'Ah…..uh, ah….Joseph look it….it ain't….Ah'm not….' She stammered but even as she tried to explain her green eyes darted to the spot against the wall behind Joseph once more and she glared hotly, hands balling into fists.

'Would ya stop laughin' at me!' Rogue demanded of the empty corridor, 'Ah swear ta God sugar if ya don't stop laughin' this instant ah….'

'Rogue?' Joseph was now alarmed; it looked like Rogue was ready to take a swing at nothing. Was she ill; was this some side-effect from touching the Threnody girl? Or some malady of the faculties Joseph had been previously unaware of?

'Oh mah gawd!'

Rogue pressed her fist to her mouth and closed her eyes, slumping against the far wall of the corridor. At first Joseph thought she was suddenly faint and he moved to support her, only to be struck dumb when he realised that Rogue's shoulders were shaking with near hysterical laughter. She palmed her face in her hands and giggled uncontrollably.

'Oh mah God, this is such a mess!' she continued to laugh wildly.

After an internable moment where Joseph just stood and watched completely unable to think of anything to say or do, Rogue finally began to subside and looked up at him with laughter tears sparking in her vivid green eyes. Her face was flushed from laughter and wreathed in a large, delighted smile. She looked in that moment almost heartrendingly beautiful.

'Oh Joseph hon, ya still here?' she swallowed another bubble of mirth as Joseph found himself feeling slightly affronted.

'Of course I am here Rogue. Where else would I be?'

Rogue's eyes darted to the side once more and her lips twitched, 'Hush sugar; dat ain't nice!' She whispered to the empty air once more. Growing increasingly exacerbated Joseph turned sharply to look over his shoulder but yet again could see nothing.

'Rogue there is nothing there!' he snapped taking the woman by the shoulders. Adding insult to injury she rolled her eyes at him and easily extracted herself from his grip.

'Well obviously not for ya hon; ya can't see him.'

'See who?' Joseph demanded, wondering if he should attempt to force Rogue to see Dr McCoy; she was obviously hallucinating after all.

Instead of answering him Rogue just smiled; a small closed lipped smile. 'No one sugar,' she shook her head seeming sad for a moment, 'there ain't no one here but ya and me.'

Joseph could only gape after her as Rogue started walking down the hallway towards the elevator up to the living quarters of the mansion. Joseph thought about following but as the first strains of an argument between Rogue and thin air reached his ears he thought better of it.

In fact it suddenly occurred to him that some mysteries were better left unsolved – and he was no longer completely convinced that Rogue was not one of those. Therefore Joseph let Rogue go still bickering in cheerfully animated fashion with herself, and went to ruminate on his own.

Maybe the X-men were not the best people to help him find his place in the world after all? They all seemed to be quite palpably insane.

* * *

Henry Hank McCoy lifted his head from the Sudoku puzzle book he had snatched from one of the imbecile flatfoot guards as the walls of his cell seemed to shudder with the deep throated vibration of a series of topside explosions.

Oho….what was this; some excitement at last, perhaps? McCoy grinned, lips and grey matted fur pulling back from an impressive set of teeth that would make any higher primate proud.

Another series of deeply muffled booms reverberated through his underground cage. McCoy cocked his head and analysed those vibrations using his prodigious natural intellect and coming to the fairly arbitrary conclusion that Havok must have come for him finally.

Hmm, that was perhaps not the opportune circumstance for Edna McCoy's bouncing baby boy; Havok, the dear, simple-minded boy, might not be feeling too graciously inclined towards Henry. Alas brainwashing and genetic tinkering tended to come between even the best of friends.

Placing the Sudoku puzzle book down on the shelf bunk in his stainless steel cube prison cell Henry ambled over to the door and rapped on the claw pitted face of the door with his claws (well, one must keep one's nails in good order, mustn't one?)

'I say,' he called through the door, 'could you keep the noise down? I am right in the middle of a rather pernicious brain teaser and require silence for optimum concentration.'

He received no answer but had not expected any. The guards had been less than sociable since that unfortunate misunderstanding with Guard Mallory's thumb…..well, the man should have known better than to stick his fingers into a _Beast's _cage, shouldn't he?

The ambient lighting shining through the ceramic panels of the ceiling flickered and shuddered above Henry's head and after a moment he was plunged into complete darkness as the power failed.

Although he possessed enhanced senses, at least compared to baseline humans, Henry could no more see in a complete absence of light than any other creature. Still sight was but one of the five senses; Henry could still _hear_ plenty.

* * *

Lieutenant Tonya Spencer had joined the United States Army to get a college scholarship; this one thought rode forefront in her mind right this second as she stared into the yellowish eyes and wide jaws of a man-monster.

All she had wanted was an education; all she got was an imminent painful death.

Her rifle was sliced in half at her feet and her back was literally up against the wall. The lion-like monster before her had crowded her into a dead end; in more ways than one. Pulling her sidearm from her thigh holster Tonya refused to allow herself to think on her family at all in this, her last moment. She was going to die now and that was depressing enough without thinking about all that was about to be stolen from her.

She aimed the sidearm, she was an army officer after all, and the freakish thing before her grinned, teeth gleaming in the broken shards of fluorescent lighting with beads of saliva.

'What's that frail; for me?' the voice issued from a large leonine face that creased into that same Rictus grin of pure intimidation. A fistful of inches long claws moved towards her face as if he did not care a whit for the gun.

Lieutenant Tonya Spencer fired directly into the monster's chest; at least she had _meant_ to. Somehow before she could complete the motion of pulling down on the trigger that huge clawed hand had closed around her own.

'Don't think so, bitch.'

Lieutenant Tonya Spencer bit through her own lip to stop herself from screaming as that big hand and all those razor sharp claws crushed her fingers around the firearm before, almost negligently, wrenching the weapon away from her twisted fingers.

'Now that weren't nice, frail. Yeah, think I'm gonna have some fun with yer now.'

Tears prickling her eyes and pain screaming through the synapses of her brain Tonya Spencer thought about the college diploma hanging on the wall of her parents home back in Indiana; she thought about her years of service with the Army. She thought about all the decisions that had brought her to this moment.

She thought about her decision to take the guard job here at Beta-Star; she'd decided to do it after being injured in Iraq - her mother had begged her to get out while she still could. The Beta-Star commission had seemed like a 'safe' stop-gap before leaving the army.

Tonya Spencer would have laughed at the irony if she could, but she could barely draw air into her lungs as the massive golden-maned lion-man curled his vicious hand around her throat and dragged her up the wall.

Black and white spots dancing before her eyes, her one working hand wrapped around the lion-man's thick boned wrist trying to stop him from hanging her and her feet drumming helplessly a good foot off the ground, Tonya Spencer expected to die very soon.

'Say g'night girlie,' the monster smiled at her, his free hand full of claws rising towards her face. Tonya closed her eyes and instead took her last moment to pray for her family's good health after she was gone.

With her eyes closed Tonya did not see what happened next; she heard a grunt, felt the big man stagger and lose his grip on her throat and then, abruptly, her knees hit the concrete floor of the facility sub level and oxygen whooshed back into her gaping mouth and starved lungs.

'M'sieur Tooth - we had an agreement.'

Gasping for breath Tonya opened her eyes and surged to her feet before she was fully ready to do so; she collapsed, leaning heavily, against the wall to find that she had a rescuer…..after a fashion.

'Get offa me, punk!'

The lion man was struggling with, of all things, a man in a tan brown trench coat who held a long metal….well, it was a long metal stick actually….against the big man's throat from behind his back. The new comer was trying to pull the blonde man backwards using his stick as leverage; the two entered into a weird parody of a dance mixed with a wrestling match.

'Non homme, mon Papa taught me how to deal wit' dogs dat don know how to behave; need to bring you to heel.'

The new arrival seemed out matched by the savage blonde, yet despite his lesser stature he had managed to bring the lion-man to his knees using only the long metal stick in his hands. Finally the monster man seemed to subside and knelt on the ground looking just like a kicked dog. He was actually growling; Tonya shuddered unable to do anything but watch the two men before her. She had never seen real mutants before (aside from the furry prisoner in the cell block) and despite her fear Tonya was fascinated.

The new comer did something unbelievably stupid then as Tonya propped herself up against the wall and watched, or at least unbelievably stupid by Tonya's standards. He withdrew the bladed point of his stick from the lion-man's throat and stepped back from him with nothing more than a contemptuous curl of the lip.

'We had an arrangement homme; no killin' de soldiers.'

The blonde beast sneered, that low horrible growl still working its way up through his throat even as he spoke. 'Ain't gonna kill the bitch – just gonna work her over some. She tried to shoot me.'

The other man looked thoroughly disgusted but also completely unconcerned by Tonya's presence. 'Course she did Tooth, she met you; ain't a femme ever lived dat ain't taken a strip outta your mangy hide.'

Tonya spotted her sidearm lying on the ground forgotten; she wasn't as good a shot left handed as she was right, but at this range she was fairly sure she could fire off a round into both men before they could react.

Ever so carefully she let herself sink down onto the floor again as if too weak to stand and reached for the gun. Her fingers were an inch away from the weapon when a metal toed booted foot slapped down onto the weapon. Tonya froze and looked up as the trench coat wearing man swept down into a crouch before her.

'Ah-ah madame,' Tonya stopped breathing as she found herself face to face with a prince of hell. Burning eyes glowed into hers from mere inches away and a lazily expressive mouth twisted up into a sly grin, 'Je regrette ma cherie but you not gon be shootin' anyone today.'

A very human hand, still bearing the faint tan of last summer, danced into her line of sight and Tonya braced herself for death once more. She cursed herself for forgetting that she was dealing with muties here; it was the human looking ones that were the most lethal. Tonya did something that flew in the face of all her training at that moment; she closed her eyes like a child, trying to hide from the inevitable.

A warm hand stroked her face startling her to no end, before strong fingers gently lifted her chin to examine the oozing cuts the lion-man had left on her throat. Tonya's eyes snapped open in total shock.

'Tsk-tsk, dose are gon smart some,' the red eyed man winked at her and Tonya noted more of his appearance as she realised her superiors would want a full report should she survive this. Her professionalism even in duress was the only reason she spent _anytime at all_ looking at the man's mouth. She most certainly had not just been thinking about how deliciously full his bottom lip was.

'Still moi, I t'ink you gon live, cherie.'

The man talking again snapped her back to attention, but all she could do was blink stupidly at him as that mouth of his stretched into a bizarrely engaging smile. She found herself smiling tremulously back simply because she could not do anything else but smile; the man's eyes seemed to dance and shimmer and she felt almost dizzy looking at them.

While she watched stupidly the man reached out to take her broken hand in his with utmost gentleness and winced when he saw the broken skin and twisted fingers. He turned sharply to look up at the lion-man who was leaning against the wall smoking a cigar and looking bored.

'Connard; you din't need to do dis to de femme.'

'Fuck you punk; yer gonna make eyes at the bitch all day or we gonna get the Beast?'

Vaguely, almost dazedly, Tonya wondered where the other guards were; surely she wasn't the only one left alive? No, no the others were probably just dealing with the two mutants attacking the base from the outside.

Tonya only realised she'd lost time when the man with the red eyes and lovely mouth stood up. 'What's de matter Tooth, you nervous homme; or mebbe you just feelin' insecure because you can' multi-task like moi?'

To Tonya's amazement both men turned to walk down the corridor towards the prisoner's cell-block, completely ignoring Tonya and the handgun the red eyed man hadn't bothered to remove. Remembering her duty finally Tonya grabbed up the gun awkwardly in her one working hand, bracing with the other to the best of her ability.

'Don't move!' She pointed the gun at the trench coated man. Of the two he was the one she least wanted to shoot, but he was also behind the lion man and the one she had the clearest shot at.

Both men turned back to face her. The blonde savage snarled and took a menacing step toward her; Tonya shifted her aim accordingly, cold sweat prickling down her spine. The trench coat wearing man was smiling faintly and with almost off-hand nonchalance he put out an arm to stop the blonde's advance.

'Hey now ma cherie, din't you hear me say dat you not gon shoot us?' his voice, with its honeyed but peculiar accent, was infinitely patient. Almost involuntarily Tonya found herself looking back at him.

'Why not?' she asked, already beginning to feel that he was right; she wasn't going to shoot. She watched a slow, warmly enticing smile spread across that fine angled face.

'Because we be mutants cherie,' he said stepping forward arms held out to the sides and completely undeterred by the gun in her hands, 'Ev'rybody know dat muties can fuck wit' a body's head, non?'

Tonya pursed her lips; she'd heard of muties who could read minds, and even control them, but had always thought that was just too weird and Sci-fi to contemplate. Even so she'd attended the mandatory Mutant Awareness training when she took the job here at Beta-Star.

'I've been trained; you're trying to distract me.'

She held the gun aimed directly at the man's chest and kept it there even when the man stepped right up to her, crouched before her, curled his hands around the gun and pushed it down into her lap.

She stared into his eyes and lost herself in that wicked grin, 'Ah cherie, I can guarantee you ain't be trained to handle me.' As Tonya stared numbly into the middle distance, stupefied like a bird in the glare of a snake, the man leaned into her and pressed his lips to her ear. 'But don' feel too bad, neh; you ain't de only one.'

Tonya shivered; briefly it occurred to her that it had been months and months since she'd had so much as a date. With this strange mutie's lips against her cheek Tonya's thoughts were on something a lot less innocuous than dinner dates. She shivered again and resisted the almost overwhelming desire to pet the man's hair.

'When de top brass asks, tell dem dat de muties messed wit' your head an' made you let 'em go,' his warm breath brushed against the drying blood on her throat and made her quiver all over, 'Hell cherie, it near enough the truth, non? An' it not like you like dis job enough to die for it, eh?'

'I…..?'

The man drew back from her, took her face in his palms still smiling that secretive, pleased smile, and then kissed her full on the lips. It did not occur to Tonya to do anything but enjoy the sensation.

'Au revoir ma cherie,' the red eyed trench coat wearing devil blew her a kiss as he rose to his feet with an irrepressibly bounce in his step. 'It's been a _pleasure_ meeting you.'

Tonya watched the two men go without a thought in her head and a rather vacuous smile on her lips.

'Yer a damned slut, punk,' she heard the lion-man growling as the two mutant intruders sauntered off towards the security locked down prison cells.

'Sticks an' stones homme, but jealousy ain't never gon hurt me.'

It was only when Tonya could no longer hear the two men trading insults that she realised that her security pass key was missing. She stared down the corridor the two men had gone down; with that pass key they could access the prison cell block. Had the trench coat man known she had a pass key? Had he somehow taken the keycard when she'd been…._distracted_? She hadn't felt anything….except his lips that is.

Tonya hesitated, her gaze skittered to the gun in her lap; she should try and stop them, or raise an alarm…..or something. She really should, they were muties; muties were a menace to society and these two were obviously dangerous. Tonya's mind flashed upon an image of the trench coat man's lips again; yes obviously very, _very_ dangerous.

Forty minutes later, when the shit really hit the fan and muties started pouring out of the sky, Tonya was still sitting quietly in that corridor. Oh well; she had wanted to get out of the army anyhow.

* * *

_A/N: Brazos……I'm sensing some major Rogue antipathy; hmm wonder why? ;) Anyway apologies for the short-ish chapter but I wanted a bit of light-hearted break from the angst of the last few chapters. It's going to be fight, fight, fight for a while after this so buckle your seatbelts!_


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter Twenty: Fragmentation**

The klaxons continued to wail as plasma fire and traditional bullets ripped through the lazy afternoon warmth. Beta-Star guards built barricades at the entrance points and formed units covering each other as they fired at the mutant intruders.

Those intruders stood outside the main gates and casually debated their next move. The guards' bullets pitter-pattered and bounced off the magnetic shield Lorna had erected around herself, Alex, and Fatale. Gambit and Creed had performed a disappearing act some time earlier; Lorna figured it was a thief trick and that the pair was now already deep inside the complex. Of course by default that meant she and Alex were the decoy; Fatale could go hang as far as Polaris was concerned.

'Ready?'

Alex, dressed as Havok, laced his fingers together and stretched his arms out; limbering up for action. His earlier handiwork filled the area. A melted armoured jeep sat in four puddles of liquefied rubber that had formerly been the jeeps tyres, and the gaping hole in the outer wall of the primary silo gave a good view of the equally eradicated hole in the inner walls of the gutted building.

All in all, the raid had been staggeringly easy.

Lorna glanced at Alex and then smiled cattily at Fatale in answer, 'Oh yeah.'

The trio turned to stare at the cavalcade of abandoned military vehicles forming a barricade preventing their escape. She and Alex exchanged a look as the rhythmic _whup-whup_ whirring of helicopter rotator propellers floated over the smoky stillness towards them.

'Okay then,' Alex grinned, 'I'll melt, you sculpt?'

'Uh-huh,' Lorna nodded, 'But first….' She flapped her hand distractedly towards a trio of soldiers who were either braver, or considerably more stupid, than their colleagues. The trio had started inching towards them and now opened fire with high-powered plasma rifles. With a wave of that same hand Lorna knocked the trio onto their asses and half way back to their buddies behind the barricade.

'There, that's better; I don't like distractions while I work.'

Lorna allowed her power to envelope her in flickering emerald flame as she rose a few feet off the ground. She concentrated on the half melted jeep near by; snatching up the metal hulk with her mind and stretching out the fingers of her power as well.

Alex took a few steps back, tugging Fatale with him. The assassin glared at Polaris; the simmering jealousy the greyish skinned woman fostered towards Lorna was getting old fast. Fatale shrugged free of Alex's restraining grip; Havok smiled. Fine then, let her take the consequences of pissing Lorna off.

Taking a few more big steps back Alex then pivoted on his heel, body twisting so he faced towards the barricade of abandoned vehicles lined up against the dirt road horizon. He loosed a twin fisted blast of super-heated plasma; his plasma blast smashed into the line of armoured cars and he concentrated on maintaining a steady level of energy as he melted the burning hulks of metal into slag.

Simultaneously Lorna tore the already wrecked jeep from its melted foundations and sent it hurtling through the air like a magnetic green comet. Fatale was too busy watching Havok in action to notice the trajectory of the jeep, which happened to put it on a collision course with her.

She had just enough time to note the large shadow descending upon her and look up, 'Oh fu….' She reacted on instinct to avoid instant death.

The jeep crashed down on top of Fatale's rapidly closing teleportation window at the same moment that Havok cut a wide, smoking trench into the ground of the front court yard; tearing up concrete and earth in a superheated white hot slash at least ten feet deep and five feet wide. The resultant blast spat hot rock, dust, and scalding mud flying through the air; the soldiers holding their position in hiding took cover as best they could. Fleeing like rats from the deluge of debris.

The trench created a divide between Alex, Lorna, Fatale, and those remaining soldiers who had not decided it was more _strategic_ to retreat into the base.

Havok stepped up beside Polaris who had set down on her feet at the smoking edge of the trench to survey the melted mass of red hot metal that was once a dozen armoured vehicles with a critical eye. She was haloed in her liquid-fire shimmering powers and Alex was almost obscured from human sight by the blinding, coruscating, nimbus of his concentric plasma blasts as they coiled around him.

'Okay then; creation time.' Lorna smiled rising into the air once more and stretching her arms out like a conductor towards the smouldering pile of molten metal.

Alex smiled back watching her rise in the air; he loved it when Lorna pushed her powers and her creativity to the max like this. 'Don't hold back; show 'em what you're made of.'

Lorna did not waste any further words on an answer; instead, still smiling, she closed her eyes and took a cleansing breath. She would let her actions speak for her this once. Letting out her breath she snatched up the old jeep again and hurled it into the mass of melted vehicles.

A second later that steaming mass began to shift and quiver; liquefied metal began to flow backwards, pulling together in streamers of flowing silver. The blackened skeletal carcasses of the jeeps and Humvees shuddered and groaned; growling and screeching as the metal shells cracked and twisted into new shapes.

Within moments the whole pile was almost unrecognisable; it resembled nothing so much as a thorn forest made of liquid steel as it stretched over the ground, rolling forward and outward in all directions and prickling, with razor pointed fingers, several feet into the air.

The _Mistress _of Magnetism had only just begun her work as the first of the military helicopters buzzed into view. Havok charged up and watched the choppers with a keen eye. He needed them to get just a little closer……

* * *

The siren roared; blearing yet another warning of impending mayhem. Ororo Munroe hurried up the boarding ramp into the Blackbird and took a seat in the main cabin alongside the rest of the team called to action.

'Goddess preserve us, what now?'

She murmured under her breath, but Logan, seated across the main aisle of the cabin from her glanced over with a wink. Ororo shared a faint smile with her friend and comrade before buckling herself in.

'Okay people,' Cyclops dropped into the pilot's seat of the Blackbird as he spoke. The strains of the last week clearly audible in his voice and notable by the presence of Jean at his side; in lieu of the recent upheavals the rigid team structure had long since fallen by the wayside.

'Cerebro has registered the presence of Polaris and,' Ororo caught her breath, hoping it would be Remy's name Cyclops spoke next, 'And Havok.'

Cyclops voice caught just a fraction on his brother's codename and Ororo felt a swell of sympathy for him; the fractious relationship between the brothers had always been a cause of pain to Scott.

'They appear to be in a powers fight, either with each other or with unknown forces, maybe human, out in the boondocks of Illinois. Beyond that we're going in blind.' Cyclops' words were clipped but his frustration was palpable. As a leader herself Ororo shared his sense of helplessness.

'Havok?' Warren spoke up from his seat further up the cabin. 'Christ, Scott, that's about all we need. What's he got to do with any of this?'

'I don't know,' Cyclops sighed tersely, 'It's not impossible that Havok's appearance is unrelated to Gambit and Polaris' defection but, considering Cerebro has identified Polaris' energy signature as well, I think it's likely that Gambit and Creed will be on the scene somewhere.'

Ororo frowned, 'Is that why you refused to allow either Rogue or Joseph to participate in this mission?'

Ororo had not been the only person to note Rogue's displeasure at being commanded to remain at the mansion and she had wondered at the reasoning behind Cyclops decision. Rogue was invaluably useful in combat missions, although Ororo would concede that placing Joseph against Polaris might have unexpected results; their powers were so similar after all.

It was Logan who answered, 'We ain't got a clue what's goin' down darlin'; all we know is the Cajun's runnin' wild and Rogue's been actin' fishy since Gumbo lit outta here. The way the two been actin' around each other lately, put them together, and chances are they'll take each out and us with 'em.'

Ororo sighed; there was much she had longed to say for months in regards the other woman's attitude towards Remy since her return to the team, but the only time she had attempted to speak of it Remy had made it very clear that her opinion was neither sought nor appreciated. That rebuff had hurt Ororo although she knew his anger had not been directed at her.

'You are right Logan; I merely wished for clarification.'

Ororo Munroe nodded to Logan respectfully but addressed her next words to Cyclops. She did not proactively push her own role as joint-leader very often but she expected to be respected as a leading member of the team all the same. She feared that her close personal relationship with Remy now meant she was being excluded from vital information.

'It might be best to assume that we shall be faced with the full contingent of the Marauders when we arrive also, in that case.'

Ororo had not fully come to terms with the fact that Charles had not thought it relevant to inform her, as both a field leader and as Remy's sponsor in the X-men, about Remy's past; equally she was deeply disappointed that Jean, her best friend, had not told her as well. Remy, she knew kept things from everyone and so she was least disappointed in him.

Thus she had determined to prove to the entire team, that, despite her personal investment in Remy, she was still first and foremost a leader and capable of divorcing herself from her feelings and assessing the threat of even those closest to her heart. In that vein she continued in cool, authoritative tones.

'It seems likely that we may have to subdue Remy by force, or at least prepare for that possibility.' She hated even saying it, but Remy did not act in half measures. He either did nothing at all or burned all his bridges at once, that was simply his way.

More than one pair of eyes fixed on her in response to her words as Cyclops bank the aircraft sharply to the right.

'Marauders; shit don't tell me they're involved as well? Bad enough if we've got to put up with a Maliced Lorna and a nutso Cajun.' Robert almost whined and slumped into his seat. 'Great; next you'll be telling us that Sinister himself is going to lay out the welcome mat.'

Ororo regarded the other members of the mission team with a regal calm. 'We cannot assume he won't be.' She pointed out grimly.

* * *

Fatale re-materialised in one of the corridors of the base.

'Bitch,' she muttered under breath thinking of the green haired hag who had tried to crush her with a car. Of course it took more than that to kill McCoy's number one creation.

The squawk and crackle of a radio transmission assaulted her ears from a small room further down the egg-shell coloured corridor.

'…….Unit ten Beta-Star requesting immediate backup; I repeat we have a full alert mutant incursion in progress; base integrity is compromised requesting immediate deployment of the Prime Sentinel units.'

Fatale located the human guard whimpering into his walky-talky. She allowed herself to ripple into the shadows, bending light around her. Moving with the silent confidence of the invisible she extended her wrist blade and stepped into the pokey little room behind the balding, khaki wearing retired military man.

Invisible and soundless she stood at the man's back and smiled down at him; this was all so easy.

'….this is Commander Evans, of unit ten Beta-Star requ….urk!'

In and out as smooth as butter; Fatale's blade entered the man's back, sliding easily between ribs. A deft twist of her wrist found his heart and the useless sack of bones was dead before he could blink. She let his sweaty bulk drop and rippled away again.

She had to find the Dark Beast.

* * *

Mr Sinister raised his blinding red gaze from the read out of one of his many monitors to look up at his wall display as a small, persistent, beeping alarm demanded his attention.

He frowned at what he saw; removing Threnody had perhaps been a premature act as now he found he had no one to monitor his various in-put screens on his behalf; such menial work, was of course, beneath his dignity to do himself. Unfortunately Scalphunter had not yet fully regenerated from his disastrous encounter with the thief and the other Marauders, in various stages of their own revival, did not have the right temperament or mental acuity for the task.

'The X-men are abroad?' Sinister rubbed the pad of his thumb to his bottom lip meditatively as deciphered the information scrolling over his screen, 'Should I postulate from this that Lebeau has decided to up the ante?'

He walked over to the bank of monitors and noted the co-ordinates and trajectory of the in-flight Blackbird. A stiletto thin smile scythed over his pallid face; ah, so that was the thief's stratagem, was it?

It would appear he had underestimated both Gambit's suicidal recklessness and his capacity for pre-meditated acts. Sinister had thought the man's over-emotional tendencies and adherence to such nebulous and abstract ideals as loyalty and fealty would prevent him from attempting to use Summers and Grey as leverage in his foolish campaign of defiance.

Clearly he had made a misassumption.

His lips thinned the smile erased instantly; he could not afford harm to come to Grey or Summers. Most particularly Summers; Grey, while undoubtedly a treasure of genetics, was somewhat more expendable than Summers. Sinister had extensive samples of Grey's DNA after all.

If Lebeau's intent was to jeopardise Summers to strike out at Sinister himself……well, if that were so, Sinister would have to intervene in a manner he did not particularly wish to. Lebeau was more valuable to him alive than dead, but Summers took precedence in all things.

Sinister stared into his monitors as he rolled calculations, variables and risk factors around and around in the sterile, cold labyrinth of this mind; the numerous power generators humming formed a low, strangely soothing, murmur at his back.

'What are you _up_ to Lebeau,' The creature known now as Mr Sinister mused out loud, 'and why do I feel that any action I take to counter you will only be to your advantage?'

There was no answer within the cold chambers of Sinister's inner sanctum save that is for the mechanical ticking of an antique pocket-watch.

* * *

It was the girlish squealing that really got to him. Remy paused in his attempt to force the Dark Beast along the corridor and idly contemplated smashing his bo-staff down on the shaggy-furred doppelganger's head as hard as he could.

An evil Henry McCoy he could accept; most often good and bad were merely differences in perspective anyhow, but a cowardly McCoy, non, that was something else entirely.

'Nooooooooo!' Presently the Dark Beast was clinging to a doorframe by his claws while Sabretooth nearly ripped him in two hauling on his legs to pry him loose. Remy's lips twitched; under other circumstances this would be tres amuser.

Sadly at the moment he did not have time to appreciate the humour. He swirled his bo-staff, retracted it to half its full length and smacked the length of it down onto the Dark Beast's fingers. The doppelganger yelped in pain and lost his grip. Sabretooth hauled him from the door.

'Nononono……unhand me you reprehensible genetic dead-end.' The Dark Beast howled pitifully, 'Help! Help! Guards! Where are you all? The American tax payer pays your wages! I am a prisoner and I demand someone come and guard me this instance.'

The Dark Beast continued to wail and gnash his teeth as he scrabbled for purchase; his claws digging into concrete walls and leaving runnels half an inch deep bleeding plaster dust as Creed pulled him along, inch by inch.

'Yer keep squirmin' I'm gonna rip yer arms off,' Creed warned the struggling Beast. Gambit followed behind the pair (no way he was giving Creed his back) and shook his head ruefully. Another moment of listening to McCoy's pitiful wailing and _he'd_ rip McCoy's arms off and save Creed the bother.

'No! No unhand me; I will not allow you to….' Beast twisted and managed to yank one leg free of Creed's grip. He pulled back the powerful limb and kicked Creed hard in the lower back. Sabretooth staggered and lost his hold on the other man completely. He spun instantly catching his balance, claws flashing, and curses at the ready.

The Dark Beast jumped to his feet and fell into a predator's crouch facing Creed. Remy, thoroughly sick of the whole sorry affair, extended his staff and brought it crashing down onto the Dark Beast's head. The grey furred self-proclaimed evil genius collapsed into a panting heap of mangy fur. Gambit kicked him over with the toe of his boot. As expected the Beast had been shamming; he came up swinging and Remy sidestepped neatly before hooking his staff under McCoy's huge head.

'Behave m'sieur or dis gon go badly for you, no?'

The Dark Beast was three hundred plus pounds of muscle and sinew; he could flatten Remy with one lucky blow and his natural acrobatic prowess and agility was a match for Remy's own. The real Henry Hank McCoy would have been a difficult takedown for Remy and Creed combined. The Beast would use both his physicality and his brains to his advantage and still manage to fight in a way that caused the minimum of pain to his opponent.

_This_ useless flea-bitten mess, in sharp contrast, was too much a coward to even try to fight with anything approaching skill or panache.

Remy hated cowardice in an opponent; vice he had plenty of and could forgive in others, dishonour, well, Remy didn't hold with honour anyhow and fighting dirty was just good sense – but cowardice, non, he hated that. He could feel his lip curling with utter contempt for the Dark Beast.

In truth Remy was also a little put out that his planned ruse, to pretend to be with the X-men still and convince McCoy he was here to rescue him from a crazed Havok, had been rumbled instantly by McCoy.

The homme had known as soon as he caught a glimpse of Creed that Remy was shamming. After that he had started screaming and wailing and trying to climb the walls to escape; the fact that he kept screaming to be saved instead of trying to fight was perhaps the most pathetic aspect of this whole farce.

Bracing the staff against his quarry's throat Remy held it in place with his folded elbows and let a faint thrum of kinetic energy run through the adamantium length. He man (or Beast?) – handled McCoy to his knees and brought his face close to his opponent's tufted ear.

'You really startin' to piss me off now mon ami; dis ain't no way to treat a teammate, oui?'

'Accck……you are mistaken…….my Acadian scum…….I am most palpably _not_ your teammate…..yuk.'

The real McCoy (pun intended) would have easily broken Remy's hold on him; this one was an aging wannabe and for all his squirming could not break free of Remy's headlock. Remy found himself missing the real Beast with a sharp ache of regret. He was still disgusted with himself that he had fallen for the Dark Beast's masquerade just like all the rest of the X-men when the doppelganger had pretended to be Hank for weeks.

'Ah non, Monsieur Bête; I seem to remember dat you lived at de mansion for weeks before Onslaught snagged you, oui? Don' matter dat you were shammin' den, you still been a teammate in de lit'ral sense, non?' Remy smiled and jerked his bo-staff up against the Dark Beast's throat a little harder, pushing down dangerously on the man's windpipe.

'In fact,' he purred in the man's ear as his charge started to singe fur and dance from hair follicle to hair follicle, igniting them as it spread, 'Moi, I be t'inkin', dat mebbe you bein' premature in your attitude; I t'ink we got a lot to offer each other, oui?'

'Argh…..you…..are being……ack!......too coy…..Gambit…..ple – ukkk – ase tell me what you really mean for I fear….aggr….that I cannot…..ackkkk……participate in this……conversation further….without…..agggh….further illumination of….gah…your intent.'

The Dark Beast tried to break free by going suddenly limp and leaning all three hundred pounds or more of his body weight against Remy. Already anticipating this form of 'attack' Remy simply took a breath and leaned into Beast, taking that added strain and concentrating on building the charge as it spread through the millions of individual follicles of hair covering the Dark Beast's body.

He smiled cruelly, glancing up at Creed who was lounging against the far wall at the end of the corridor watching the show. 'D'accord mon ami, perhaps you right, eh? Perhaps I let M'sieur Tooth do de talkin' instead?'

Creed cocked his head to the side like a curious dog; Remy could almost see his ears prick up. He chuckled darkly.

'Of course,' Remy continued with a certain dark glee, 'm'sieur Tooth been known to get a lil' _physical_ while he talkin' but I'm sure you man enough to take it, oui?'

Creed grinned and took a step forward; the Dark Beast stopped struggling against Remy's hold on him and stared in horror at Creed. Remy was disgusted all over again.

He and the real Henry McCoy may not be that close (and this was actually a source of regret to Remy; he liked the Beast and wished he could dare to trust the other man more) even so, he had always admired the true Beast's courage, conviction, and boundless generosity. The mangy creature in his arms was not so much evil doppelganger as a vicious insult to the man he resembled so closely.

'What you t'ink mon ami?' he sneered into the Dark Beast's ear, 'You like dat idea better?'

'…..accckkkk…..not especially….no….'

'No? Well den guess you ought to be nicer to me, oui? Or'n I'm gon throw you to Creed an' watch him shred you, D'accord?'

Remy was by no means sure if he could charge animate matter now, or whether whatever Sinister had done to him to remove that capacity was still in effect. Still, that didn't matter right now as he did not need to start charging the Bête Noir's flesh, only his hair, and that was dead anyhow.

'V….very well, now that I am fully prescient…akkk!....Gah!....of the salient facts of my….urrr….situation…..I am all ears and attentiveness.' McCoy gasped out as Creed, prepared for the moment to play the part of silent muscle, went back to slouching against the wall.

Remy closed his eyes, yanked hard on the staff drawing it inwards and then upwards under le Bête Noir's chin, as he rose to his feet; a choking McCoy dragged upright with him. He opened his eyes once more. The charge crackled a vivid fuchsia through his staff and he smiled sharply as he saw that much of McCoy's chest hair was already glowing.

That should prove an incentive for good behaviour, non?

* * *

Cyclops, flying the Blackbird, could not turn to face Ororo as the impact of her previous words were felt throughout the cabin but he pitched his voice back so it could be heard.

'Explain Storm; I agree with you that we can't dispute the possibility that Sinister is going to be at the site when we land, but it sounds like you've a reason to see it as _more_ than a possibility.'

Ororo nodded and chose her next words carefully, 'Since the revelations regarding Gambit's connection to Sinister became known I have thought long and hard over the connotations. Remy left New Orleans on the turn of his eighteenth birthday. He was twenty-three when he joined the team.'

Robert interrupted before she could come to her point, 'Jeez – wait, you're telling me he's only twenty-six?' he looked from Ororo to the back of Jean's head, 'He's only Jean's age?'

Ororo smiled caustically, the fact that at twenty-eight, Ororo herself was older than Remy was a source of some embarrassment to them both; especially as she had been in the form of a pubescent child when they first met.

'Yes Robert; Remy does not know the exact day and month of his birth, but he is no older than twenty-six years old.'

She waited for everyone in the cabin to remember her previous line of discussion before continuing.

'I believe this period of five years wherein Gambit was on his own, are pivotal. Remy must have become enmeshed with Sinister sometime _before_ he met me in Cairo Illinois and some time _after_ leaving his home. That is a small window of time; it must have happened, I would argue, when he was between nineteen and twenty-one.'

'Okay Storm,' Warren said slightly impatiently, 'I mean that's important to know in the wider context but how does….' He stopped as he came to his own realisation. 'Shit, if Gambit's twenty six now, six years ago he would have been twenty - and it was about that time that Sinister created the Marauders and struck out against the X-men for the first time.'

Jean turned around in the co-pilot's seat, surprise colouring her expression, 'God, I never thought of that.' She shook her head green eyes fixing on Ororo, 'That would explain why he went to Lorna, then. I couldn't figure that out but it makes sense in context to the Marauders. That's the only link between Gambit, Sinister, Sabretooth, _and_ Polaris after all.'

Ororo nodded gravely, 'Remy would never speak of his previous vocation before joining the team in anything but the most vague generalisations.' She looked pointedly at Logan who was perhaps the only other person on the team who might understand Remy's past life, 'I do know however that he supplemented his income by working as a freelance bounty-hunter.'

Logan's grizzled eyebrows quirked, 'So that's where he gets it from?'

The gruff man snorted a laugh, 'Shoulda figured; Guild trained thief could make good money scoping out a mark for a hunter. Hell Gumbo wouldn't have to get his hands dirty takin' down the mark, just find the bastard and sell the location to the highest bidding.'

'Indeed,' Ororo said sadly, Remy had never spoken with any pride about his previous life, but it still disturbed Ororo to imagine the sort of things Remy had done for nothing more than money and an immature desire to get his own back on a world that had often treated him poorly. Remy was better than a mere mercenary for hire. He always had been, but no one had bothered to tell him so. Alas as with all things the lowest common denominator defined the whole and Remy would always be tarnished by those things he had done wrong because no one had ever encouraged him to do the _right_ thing.

'My main point however,' She said slowly, feeling like she walked a tightrope over a chasm filled with knives with every syllable spoken, 'is that his dual vocation as thief and bounty hunter would have afforded him a wide variety of contacts that a man such as Sinister might wish to exploit.'

'Meaning?' Warren demanded, but Ororo chose not to address his rudeness at this moment. Her pride was not so great, and there were more weighty matters to worry about. Later however she and Warren would have words.

'Meaning,' she replied coolly giving Warren the full weight of her gaze as she unconsciously sat up straighter in her seat assuming the familiar mantle of regal dignity she wore like a cloak around her every action. 'I believe that Remy knows some, or all, of the Marauders.'

Ororo looked down and forced herself to say the words she could barely make herself believe, 'It seems improbably that he would not, considering the time scale.' She looked up again and stared almost defiantly at each person in the back of the plane in turn.

'If I was ever in Sinister's position, as loathsome as it is for me to imagine it, I would look to recruit a thief of Remy's calibre and skills to form part of any team I gathered to face the X-men.'

She found herself staring at the back headrest of Cyclops chair. She refused to look elsewhere. All she could hear was the roar of the Blackbird's engines and the thumping of her own heart.

It was Logan who broke the crushing silence that filled the cabin like a miasma, 'Gumbo never fought with the Marauders 'Ro; I'd'a smelled him.' He looked around the cabin, 'And I don't forget a scent; ever.'

Ororo met her friend's eyes struggling to keep her feelings at bay, 'He escaped Logan; Jean told us that he escaped something so terrible that it nearly destroyed him.'

She reached out across the aisle towards Logan in a rare show of physicality, but right now she wanted the tacit support of his steady presence as she spoke. It felt as if with every word spoken that questioned his actions, she betrayed Remy in someway. He had oft told her that she was the first person to see the potential for good in him, and perhaps the only person in his life who had ever given him her unconditional trust; now she found that she could do so no longer. Sinister's cruel taint of association had already cast doubt on everything she believed.

'Remy is precious to me in a manner I cannot speak of,' she conceded eventually unwilling to speak more of the value she placed upon Remy's friendship because she did not feel anyone, even those in this plane whom she loved like family, had a right to know her inner most feelings.

'However I am no fool,' Ororo smiled faintly as Logan took her hand in his two large, calloused hands. 'Perhaps more than anyone else in this plane I know Remy's faults and his flaws. He is capable of monstrous recklessness and selfishness,' she glanced around the cabin.

'He sees the world differently than most; he places his trust in the wrong people or he trusts not at all. Betrayal had been the currency of his life up until he came to the team.' She smiled sardonically, 'He would be the first to admit that.'

Ororo Munroe sat straight in her seat once more and opened her eyes; composure and poise came easily to her, a constant façade she hid behind. Inside something curled up and died behind her breastbone; a wordless sense of agony and betrayal searing her throat like bile. She swallowed inaudibly and addressed the rest of the team.

'I am left to wonder, knowing what I do, just what Remy did for Sinister in that time; a time of monstrous cruelty and bloodshed. What could wound him so deeply to the core that he would willingly devote himself, ever more, to fight the darkness in him where once he embraced it?'

She looked at each passenger in the aircraft in turn, almost wishing that someone would give her an answer other than the suspicion gnawing at her heart and soul. Logan met her eyes with his own steady, ancient gaze. Warren turned away from her look, his own brows riding low in a frown. Bobby plucked at fluff balls on the upholstery of the chair in front of his own and Bishop, silent all this time, continued to look down at the plasma rifle he polished in his lap. Jean met her eyes, sympathy and empathy bleeding from her gaze.

_Remy adores you, 'Ro; whatever is going on with him that hasn't changed._

_Perhaps, but he and I are not children; devotion and friendship does not save one from pain and betrayal. I fear for him and I fear what he might do. _

There was nothing Jean could say to reassure her and after a moment the telepath turned in her chair to face front as the fluffy cumulous clouds of spring danced by the speeding aircraft.

No one in the aircraft cabin spoke for many miles after that; each person locked in their own thoughts, their own fears. For Ororo the rest of journey was a silent torture; in her mind she reached for the presence of her Goddess and found only questions.

Her mind's eye fixed on a memory of a night months ago; a night in which she had gone down to the Morlock tunnel memorial and found a sea of candles marking every grave stone. That one act of remembrance had pierced her to the soul; Remy would not weep for strangers, yet it had been tears she had seen in his eyes that night. It was also the first time he had ever outright lied to her.

Ororo closed her eyes and offered a silent prayer to her Goddess whose presence she felt only the absence of in her soul.

Please Goddess, he was not there; please Goddess do not do this to me. I love him so; do not force me to hate him. Please Goddess let me be wrong; let it be that he was not there. Let it be that the death of the Morlocks lays not upon his head - for I fear that I might kill him to find he has betrayed me so.

* * *

'Arrrhhhgg!...enough you violent, inbreed hick……cease and desist!.....Ukr….do you….ack!....do you know how hard it is to condition this fur? You will ruin…ack!...my pelt entirely!'

The Dark Beast twisted and squirmed against the headlock but Remy simply moved with him, hanging off the Bête Noir's bulk and letting the other man all but throttle himself in his half-assed attempts to escape. When McCoy began to realise he was not getting free that easily he grew still.

'What do you want?' he choked out eventually and Remy rolled his eyes heavenward; for a genius the homme sure took a while to realise he was licked.

'Conversation, M'sieur; we gon have us a nice chat, mon ami.' Remy whispered into the Dark Beast's ear and pressed down a fraction of an inch harder against the other man's windpipe.

By this point the Dark Beast was well aware he was in considerable trouble but arrogance was clearly no respecter of circumstance; his lips curled and his next words were anything but submissive.

'Alas……ahhhgh…..but I'm afraid that I do not…….wish to…..urrkkk…..demean…oww _would you stop that_…acck!…_demean_ myself by attempting to plug the depths of inferiority that would be necessary for us to converse successfully…ack!'

McCoy tried to brace his feet against either narrow wall of the cell block corridor using his size and reach to wedge himself in place; Remy kicked his legs out from under him and the Bete Noir very nearly choked on his own tongue as he momentarily fell against the staff lodged under his chin.

'Now homme, dat's jus' plain rude.'

Remy jerked the staff away and kicked McCoy in the back, knocking him to the floor. He landed on top of the furry doppelganger before the man could twist around and start fighting back. Straddling the Bête Noir he fisted a hand into the back of his furry head and let his charge envelope the man's skull completely.

McCoy shuddered underneath him and vaguely Remy wondered what it felt like for someone else to have his charge running through their flesh. It seemed like it hurt, which was food for thought if nothing else. He leaned down to hiss in McCoy's ear once more.

'I come all dis way to talk to you mon ami; brought some friends wit' me an' ev'ryt'ing jus' for you.'

He purred as McCoy's face contorted under his glowing fur with pain; the scent of burning hair filled the narrow corridor causing Creed to wrinkle his sensitive nose in distaste. Still he did not back off; he wanted to watch and absorb every nuance of McCoy's pain up close and personal.

Remy shook his head; distantly there was a voice in his head that told him to stop. Death was inevitable after all, but cruelty was a choice and never a necessity. Remy Lebeau had made several promises to himself years ago in the aftermath of the massacre. He'd promised that he would never hurt another living being like he was now hurting McCoy solely for his own gain. He'd also promised never to kill in cold blood and he'd already murdered Grey Crow.

It was a slippery slope and Remy wasn't sure just when and where he'd started his downward slide.

'You gon talk to me homme, because if'n you don' I'm gon burn off ev'ry hair on your body, string you up to de walls an' let m'sieur Tooth slice you open befor' I reach through de gapin' hole in your chest an' blow your black heart straight to hell; comprehende vous?'

Somewhere a line Remy had sworn he would never cross again for any reason, had been not so much _crossed_ as scrubbed out of existence. The little voice in his head that seemed to be screaming at him from a very long way away begged him to run while he still had a chance and while there was still something good in him left to salvage.

'You listenin' homme or you want me to let Sabretooth explain it to you again, eh?'

Remy tightened his grip on McCoy, digging fingers into his scalp and catching the man's choked off gasp of increasing pain. What good were morals, honour, and the rest of those things to him? His high morals and refusal to give in to the worst of Essex's demands hadn't done a thing to save the Morlocks after all; probably just ensured they died horribly.

'Not at all..ack…..my psychotic….agggrr….former comrade at arms…..ukk…I believe …ugg…..that I understand you completely.'

Remy released McCoy abruptly, jumping lightly to his feet and fastidiously wiping off his palms where singed grey-blue fur had come loose from the main bulk of the Bête Noir's body in chunks.

'Merci mon ami,' he smiled and winked at Creed who looked mildly impressed by the ruthlessness he had shown, 'so den, why don you tell me a story, eh?'

The Dark Beast struggled into a crouch and rubbed at his neck. He looked up in response to the suggestion with mild contempt.

'I fear I am not in the business or catering to your juvenile desire for bedtime stories.'

Remy cocked his head to the side and reached out snake fast to snatch up a fistful of the fake Beast's scalp fur, 'Hey homme, I'm t'inkin' you ain't in a position to refuse, non?'

The Dark Beast pulled free of Remy's hold and glanced warily between Remy and Creed. He did not look happy.

'Perhaps you are right; what story would like me to narrate for you? Jack and the beanstalk; Cinderella? Disney is about your speed, is it not, my thievish aggressor?'

Remy smiled blandly and withdrew a collection of throwing knives from his trench coat pocket; too fast to countenance he threw one down. It struck and embedded in the flesh of the Bete Noir's right hand, still quivering in the air as the other man struggled to register what had happened and why his hand was speared to the ground.

'Mebbe later, oui? Right now I wanna hear de tale o' what rock you gon an' crawled up from under homme.' He winked, 'An' what dat's got to do wit' a mutual acquaintance of ours.'

McCoy wrenched the throwing dart from the back of his hand and rubbed almost childishly at the injury with his good hand. He glared mutinously up at Remy.

'Mutual acquaintance, whatever do you……?' he stopped thoughts percolating behind his large furred face, 'Oh my Stars and Garters.' His eyes grew comically wide. 'You cannot mean….' He trailed off.

Remy nodded fixing his eyes on McCoy's, 'Oui m'sieur, I do.' He fanned out the glowing blades in his hand, 'Now you better start talkin' homme or else, moi, I be t'inkin' to make a trade wit' de man Essex.'

McCoy swallowed, 'A trade?'

'D'accord,' Remy crouched down snatched up the homme's furred head and held the glowing points of his fistful of blades to the Bête Noir's wide right eye, 'You for me, homme. One o' us is gon end up in his labs – an' I t'ink I'd like it better if'n it be you.'

McCoy licked his lips with an incongruously pink tongue against the greyish-blue of his fur. 'P…perhaps we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement…one where neither of us graces Mr Sinister's labs with our august presence?'

Remy's smile was as sweet and wide as a child's and his eyes were hard as blood red marble.

'Start talkin' homme.'

* * *

The Blackbird sliced through the skies headed for trouble in the hinterlands of Illinois.

Cyclops guided the Blackbird towards the quadrangle structure that was obviously some form of military installation; the smoke and light show coming from the ground was a dead giveaway that it was also their destination.

He frowned as he began the planes descent; he wasn't sure he could face another showdown with Alex like the last one. Still he was fairly sure Alex wouldn't be throwing him out of a commercial airplane and leaving him to die a painful death impaled on rocks in the ocean as he had last time.

No in all likelihood Alex had come up with a whole new way of letting Scott know that he sucked as a brother. Alex had always been the imaginative one in the family after all.

Scott frowned as he gained a better look at the situation on the ground; what was that silver thing down below? It looked like a huge, twisted tree made of metal rising up out of a smoking crater in the ground.

What the hell was that thing – and what were those things coming out of it? It looked almost like chopper propellers coming out of one of the thick, sinuous metal arms of the 'tree' like structure dominating the entrance way to the building. He was still trying to puzzle out what he was seeing when Jean stiffened beside him in alarm.

'Scott; watch out!'

Jean's warning shout came a fraction of a second too late as the Blackbird came into range of one of the metal 'tree's' serpent like branches. The branch, made of a liquid amalgamation of metallic parts, sheared off the tip of the Blackbird's left wing; at the same time the outer shell of the aircraft was buffeted by a pulse of magnetic energy.

Internal systems failure was imminent. Cyclops attempted evasive manoeuvres but there was nothing he could do; they had been ambushed before they had even arrived fully at the scene.

Another tendril of living metal smashed through the side of the aircraft, piercing the inside of the cabin and tearing a wide gash in the outer hull. A moment later the roof of the plane was peeled off like lid from a sardine can. Jean enveloped them in a telekinetic bubble an instant before the lack of oxygen could implode their lungs and kill them all.

The X-men went down – and they went down hard.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter Twenty-One: Culmination **

'Scott; watch out!'

The sounds of twisting, rupturing metal; the scream of a vacuum as the pressurised air in the cabin exited in a tornado rush through the gaping hole in the roof was almost unbearable to Wolverine. He snarled and the sound of his gnashing teeth was completely lost in the tumult all around him.

The force of the pressure sucking the oxygen from the cabin smashed him back against his chair; pushing down on his chest hard enough to implode lungs and shatter ribs. Then, with agonising abruptness, the pressure vanished as a globe of telekinetic energy enfolded the interior of the cabin.

Through the shattered windshield of the cockpit Logan could see a tangled, impossible mesh of metallic limbs; it looked like a sea beast from the deep made entirely from metal had suddenly appeared in the middle of Illinois to drag the Blackbird down to depths.

Enthroned in the very centre of that serpentine mess of tentacles and writhing branches of metal, Malice floated, haloed in an eldritch corona of her own energies. He saw her reach out a hand towards those inside the cabin and in response to her command another huge tendril of metal, tipped with the blade of a helicopter propeller, shot through the window.

Jean screamed as the bladed metal limb hit her shield; Phoenix held firm but a trickle of blood began to flow from her nostrils. Cyclops blasted at the limb with an optic blast, severing the bladed tip. Strangely, as if the limb was truly alive and could feel pain, it withdrew back through the window.

Wolverine growled furious and helpless. His bone claws extended from both hands but without the adamantium to make his claws practically indestructible there was precious little he could do against the thick limbs of metal smashing multiple holes in the Blackbird. There was _nothing_ Logan could do as the Blackbird's hull was shredded.

The fact that he could not aid his teammates was worse than the threat of death. Logan had almost died so many times already that he did not blink at the prospect of pain and death but the idea that Jeannie, or 'Ro, or anyone in this plane might die because Logan couldn't stop it was enough to bring the bloodlust up through his veins.

He gripped the hand-rests of his seat and ducked his head between his knees assuming crash the position. Iceman and Bishop did the same. Ororo struggled to rise up in her chair and summon a gale force wind to keep them aloft but it did no good with a tentacle of metal, the width of a man, poking through the hull of the cabin spearing the aircraft in place like an anchor.

The metal tentacle held the Blackbird immobile as other coils wrapped around the vessel, pulling it from the sky and into a metallic embrace.

'Jean!'

Logan looked up at Cyke's shout; he saw Jeannie, wreathed in her flame like power glow, trying to push the large tendril of metal out of the side of the plane. As always Logan caught his breath to see Jeannie in action. Her hair whipped about her head, her green eyes glowed like copper flame and reddish pink energy scythed from her body in all directions; reminiscent of the lash of a dozen whips trying to beat back the metallic branches of whatever the hell it was that had seized the plane.

'Go Jeannie,' Logan grinned with savage pride as he saw that Jean was winning her battle. The tentacle whipped and twisted as Phoenix forced the metal limb to curl up into a ball, like a roll of carpet, with nothing more than her willpower alone. Emerald fire eyes narrowed in concentration and Phoenix forced the rolled limb back out of the plane.

Storm took to the skies through the hole in the plane's roof as if she and Phoenix had planned the mode of defence. She summoned a gale force wind to keep the plane aloft with a tremendous crack of thunder.

'Go Scott; go!' Jeannie shouted and Cyke did his best to fly the ruined aircraft out of the metallic kraken's sinuous grip.

Lightning seared the sky as Storm threw bolts of lightning at the metallic construct, trying to distract both Malice and her pet while Cyke fought to bring the Blackbird down to safety before the ship rattled itself to pieces.

Logan kept his head up and watched as the ground reared up to meet them; Cyke was silent as he tried to keep the nose up and level out the plane for a very bumpy landing. Jean stretched out her telekinetic blanket to cover the whole of the ship; trying to keep the 'Bird in one piece.

It was a fool's errand but then the X-men had survived worse. Still some sense honed by years of danger rang in Logan's head; he knew that this day luck was not on the X-men's side.

It was then that something hit the Blackbird's wing; a scorching flash of white light and some kind of energy blast broadsided the 'Bird. The aircraft bucked and shook with the impact. Cyke was thrown forward against the dash and hit face first, instantly losing consciousness. His hands slipped from the controls as the plane roared towards the ground.

'Scott!' Jean's concentration snapped as she felt Cyclops' end of the link go dead. The telekinetic bubble keeping them all from being sucked straight out of the numerous gaping holes in the plane's hull vanished. Phoenix's eyes flared again as she instantly tried to re-establish the shield……but it was too late.

A flare of painfully bright green light enveloped the cabin of the Blackbird. Malice appeared, floating before the hole in the roof. She reached forward with two hands and dragged each member of the X-men out of the cabin with her powers.

Malice smiled, 'Come to mamma X-men.'

Logan was not the only one who fought that nebulous grip, but before he could shake free snake like coils of metal from Malice's monstrosity curled around each X-man holding them trapped as the Blackbird continued its descent.

The plane smashed nose first into the ground, ripping in two as it spun out, rolled, and bounced across the grassy field near the government facility. The resultant fireball sent shadows of tiger striped flame across the surrounding area. The bilious black smoke that soon engulfed the wreckage seemed to swallow the lazy afternoon sun whole.

'Lorna; stop this!' Phoenix was still fighting and Logan renewed his struggles; especially when he saw Ororo, unconscious, and held in the grip of a dozen spidery thin, silver tendrils. If he could just twist his wrist back, he thought he could extend his claws and slice through the thin piece of metal holding him.

Malice laughed bright and sharp, 'Nope; I don't think I will.'

She twinkled her fingers, wreathed in green energy, as the branches of her metal tree lowered the captive X-men to the ground. Logan snarled again when he spotted Alex Summers, glowing like a captive star, standing below them. At least now he knew who to blame for shooting the 'Bird from the sky.

'I think it's past your bedtime, X-men,' the Marauder sing-songed gratingly, 'Say g'night now.'

A pulse of magnetic energy speared through each X-man in turn. The shockwave that knocked Logan out left greenish black aftershocks behind his eyes; those aftershocks chased Logan, fighting all the way, into unconsciousness.

* * *

The thunderous roar of an immense explosion shivered through the walls of the Beta-Star complex. Gambit lifted his head and arched a brow towards Creed, 'What you reckon, homme; dat sound like de X-men to you?'

Creed grinned, revealing many yellowed, sharp edged teeth. He flexed his claws eyes almost wet with anticipation. 'The runt,' he mumbled practically salivating in his excitement. Remy worked at keeping his revulsion from showing on his face.

Considering all the times Wolverine had handed Creed his head on a plate Remy could not understand why Sabretooth was so all fire eager to get his ass handed to him again. Eh, not like he cared of course; it was all good to him if Wolverine and Creed ripped each other to shreds.

Rolling his eyes Remy turned from Creed and waved his hand negligently, 'You gon go check it out den?' he asked blandly turning his attention back to the far too quiet and meek seeming McCoy. 'Me an' M'sieur Bête got us some t'ings to discuss.'

'Whatever punk,' Creed was grinning as he turned to go, 'If yer lucky I'll bring yer back one a' the runt's claws as a souvenir.'

Remy curled his lip, 'You too kind homme.' He was talking to thin air however, as Creed was already gone; scampering off for a beating if Remy's luck was in.

'Now m'sieur, where were we?' Remy turned back to McCoy in time to see a large, blue-grey furred fist headed right for him; McCoy's huge, gleeful grin framed behind it.

* * *

Bishop was a man of action, affirmative action, and definitive moves; he had little time for deception or, it must be said, subtlety. Deep down he suspected his intractable determination to do things in primary colours, never in shadow, was a reaction against his upbringing.

Still when Malice's electro-magnetic pulse wave failed to knock him unconscious as it did the rest of the X-men due to the protection offered by his own mutation. Nevertheless he did not draw his captors attention to this fact. He played dead with natural aplomb.

_You a natural pup; got de personality to match too, non? _

The snide voice of his subconscious was an uncomfortable amalgam of the Witness' harsh, withering sarcasm always carrying that edge of hysteria with it and the warmer, more amiable sardonic humour Gambit usually addressed him with.

_Now jus' don go doin' any'ting stupid, d'accord, pup?_

I won't; Bishop was instantly mortified to find himself growing indignant in the face of a figment of his own imagination. It took effort not to frown and end up betraying the fact that he was not insensate.

'Well, that went a lot better than I thought it would.' A male voice Bishop identified as Havok reached him as footsteps thudded across the grassy field.

Lying with his face in the high, scratchy grasses Bishop forced himself to remain relaxed and loose as the other man approached. 'Scott must be under serious pressure. They just flew straight into a text book ambush; he's usually better than this.'

Bishop seethed inside as he was rolled over onto his back and his hands and feet bound (inexpertly; he noted with a certain dark satisfaction – Havok was sloppy).

'Don't look a gift horse in the mouth,' another voice, female and with a less grating cadence than Bishop had heard before spoke up. Dane sounded further away from Bishop than Havok, perhaps she was still airborne. 'We don't want a full out confrontation with the X-men; frankly I think Gambit was insane to provoke _this_ in the first place.'

Gambit; Bishop almost opened his eyes at mention of the missing mutant's name. He struggled with his instinct to spring into action and start demanding answers and thought he heard the faint, soft rumble of mocking laughter deep in his memory.

_Never learn, do you pup? Always jumpin' to conclusions; always wrong too. T'ink you be bored of screwin' up by now, oui?_

Bishop banished the echo of that quavering, smoke roughened old cackle. Still it was not so easy to banish the sting of shame that the voice brought with it; that and the sense that he had been a constant disappointment to the only father he had ever known.

_You were always so scared o' growin' up to be me, pup, dat you never grew up at all. De XSE, de search for de 'X-traitor', tell me pup, when you gon' run out o' excuses an' start livin' for a change, eh? _

To Bishop's quiet pleasure after finishing restraining him Havok turned Bishop back onto his side. Bishop allowed his limbs to flop limply, or as limply as they could, bound as he was. He waited, summoning all his reserves of patience, until Havok moved off to continue to bind the other members of the team.

Once he felt it was safe Bishop opened his eyes; he found himself staring into the bright blue depths of Wolverine's keen gaze. The premier fighter of the X-men winked at Bishop with grim humour and Bishop was forced to battle another wave of memory.

_Witness, tell me of the X-man Wolverine._

_Eh? You say somet'ing pup?_

_Wolverine; what was he like?_

_A God damned pain in de ass, boy; homme was bearly housebroke, mostly feral, but had him de idea in his head dat he was better den de other cutthroats 'cause o' his 'honour'. Mon dieu he was a hypocrite, but den most o' de Professeur's puppies were. _

Bishop shivered; he had never told any of the X-men, or even the Professor himself, that with every day he spent in the twenty-first century his memories of his own era grew less and less cohesive, less and less reliable. He had long suspected that was because with every day he stayed in, what was to him the 'past', his own future changed. The memories he had became false because they were based on events and a life that might never happen. The only aspect of his childhood that remained vividly clear was his sister Shard……and the Witness; his family.

Even as Bishop fought off memory one again he was busily wriggling out his bindings; he had never admitted to it, and _would_ never admit to it, but he could pick a lock as well as Storm and knew how to break out of most conventional restraints. The Witness had taught him that before he had even allowed Bishop to start to learn to read.

_Knowledge don' never set a body free, pup. Learn for love of learning, but always be prepared for life to beat you down. _

Once he had slipped his hands free of his bindings he returned his attention to the present with increasing difficulty to find Wolverine watching him with a speculative regard. The other man smirked.

'Guess Gumbo really did raise yer, after all.' He murmured too low to be heard by Dane and Havok who were a dozen feet away by Cyclops and Phoenix.

'You have no idea,' Bishop muttered darkly; he did not need to worry about Wolverine's restraints as the other man would easily break free with sufficient distraction. Therefore Bishop pushed himself upright, already summoning one of his own energy blasts, and fired at the unsuspecting hulk of the currently dormant metal 'tree'.

Using the power he had absorbed from Dane's electro-magnetic blast he sheared off one of the larger branches of the metallic monstrosity and the huge, bladed limb fell to the ground atop the Marauder and the renegade Summers.

'Shit!' Havok cursed. Dane spun around, green energy crackling around her and caught the debris before it could crush the pair of them.

However the distraction was all Bishop and Wolverine had needed. Free of his own restraints Wolverine sliced through both men's ankle shackles as Bishop rose on his knees to fire another blast directly at Dane while she was distracted trying to fuse the severed branch back into the main trunk of her creation.

A coruscating, concentric blast of plasma roared over the air towards the pair and Bishop moved forward with surprising speed for some his size, taking the blast directly to the chest before rebounding the power back to the source in the form of his own converted energy. Havok was forced to hit the ground to avoid being hit and Dane was broadsided by the edge of the blast as it grounded a few feet behind the pair.

Wolverine twitched, a hairsbreadth away from a full on charge towards their ambushers, Bishop caught his arm.

'No,' he loosed another blast at the metallic tree, searing a hole in the 'trunk'. Dane rose into the air, looking more annoyed than bloodthirsty, and instantly began to use her own control over metal to meld the construct back together.

Wolverine tore free of Bishop's grip, 'We can take 'em bub.'

'Yes, but we won't.' Bishop struggled to pull the small powerhouse of muscle and fury back, 'Dane and Havok are nothing; we need to find Gambit.'

Havok had risen to his feet and powered up again in the interim and he now fired a wide beam of plasma at the pair of them. Bishop let go of Wolverine; he understood and even agreed with the other man's desire to protect their downed comrades. It was the right thing to do and under any other circumstances Bishop would do the same thing - but not now.

The X-men did not know what Lebeau was capable of; Bishop was the only one who did. He was the only one who knew the depths of ruthless madness the Witness was capable of. He also recognised the delicate, complex artistry of one of the Witness' impenetrably grand schemes at work in all this.

Bishop turned and ran from a fight for the very first time in his adult life. He abandoned his commanding officer, his vulnerable comrades, and another teammate to fight alone but it was not cowardice that motivated him. He wasn't sure what emotion seized him now; it should have been triumph to be proven right about Lebeau all along – but it wasn't. Bishop headed at a full out sprint straight for the hole in the wall of the facility and ducked inside.

Whatever he felt, whatever might come of it, Bishop was certain of but one thing; Gambit would want him near when he did whatever it was he had planned.

_Come to kill me pup? Judge me, kill me, set me free?_

It was only when Bishop stopped to gather his bearings that he realised Wolverine had followed him. The smaller man grabbed him and jabbed the claws of his right hand up at Bishop's throat. 'Yer better be right bub, because if anything happens to Jeannie or the others because we left 'em….' He did not need to finish the threat; Bishop understood empathically and he nodded gravely.

'The X-men will not be hurt; that is not why we were brought here.'

Wolverine cocked his head to the side curiously, 'Then what were we brought here for?'

Bishop frowned and once again heard the soft cadence of faintly mocking laughter in his ever cloudy memories. 'To witness,' he said quietly, 'We are here to bare witness.'

* * *

Gambit swore as he moved with the punch, rolling backwards end over end to avoid having every bone in his face shattered. He ended up slammed into the wall with a triumphant McCoy grinning into his face.

'Ah how the worm turns,' the Bête Noir crowed, 'Did you think me fool enough to try and fight with Sabretooth present? Oho no, I am not a registered genius for nothing, my Acadian appetiser, I prefer to fight my battles when the odds are in my favour.'

Large, bristled hands curled around Remy's throat and proceeded to try and throttle him to death. Remy twisted and freed one hand. He jabbed his thumb forward and poked his digit straight into the Dark Beast's right eye. He pressed down and felt something hard yet slimy give under the pressure. McCoy howled in pain and reared back from him.

'My eye; you cretin, you nearly poked my eye out.'

When McCoy pulled his hand from over his eye it was squeezed closed, blood and clear viscous fluid matting the mangy fur around it. Remy smiled savagely; there was blood weeping from the scratches on his throat that the Dark Beast had given him and his vision was spotty from lack of oxygen to the brain. He wavered to his feet, fingertips glowing fuchsia.

'….Sorry homme, c'mere an' I finish de job for you, oui?' he pasted a nasty grin on his face and beckoned with one hand.

Le Bête Noir let out a battle cry like an enraged Baboon and threw himself bodily at Remy. Remy lunged forward to meet him and they collided in mid-leap.

* * *

The being known by a select few unfortunate souls as Mr Sinister stepped through his tesseract and ended up deep inside the womb of the violated Beta-Star facility; Summers and Grey, although restrained, were in no danger. Dane and the younger Summers sibling had no intent to harm any of the X-men currently in their care. So Sinister had extrapolated from reading their brainwaves and through his own calculations in case and Sinister had never seen any reason to question his own reasoning.

Harming the X-men would be of great detriment to both mutants long term aims; Havok would not kill the brother upon which his own obsession was built and Dane would know that killing the X-men would leave her without allies when Sinister chose to make his move. Ergo for the moment Sinister was content to let the drama play out as it would between the X-men and their former compatriots.

No, his interest was in Lebeau who was most definitely not acting within pre-established parameters of behaviour. Sinister suspected that the mental blocks artificially limiting the more arcane aspects of Gambit's powers, and his reasoning faculties, had been removed through intervention or devices unknown and now the thief was acting in a manner Sinister found disturbingly hard to predict.

He would have to take the mutant in hand; Lebeau was too useful to him and he could not afford the time for extensive reengineering if the thief had truly broken free of his conditioning.

Sinister raised his head, nostrils flaring as if scenting the air; like a snake sensing heat Sinister made his way through the warren of corridors in the bowels of the Beta-Star compound headed towards the bright beacon of Lebeau's mutant signature. He could not fully fathom what the thief's intentions were, if in fact he was in anyway rational to begin with, but whatever the man had planned Sinister fully intended to put a stop to it.

He had no interest in promoting free will in his tools, after all, and the Garden needed a care taker.

* * *

……_Scott……Scott….watch out!.......Scott……._

'Fuck – _that_ went well; I forgot Bishop absorbs mutant energy.'

Scott Summers struggled upwards, pushing through the darkness towards consciousness Jean's voice echoing faintly in his mind and another voice ringing in his ears. There was pain but it wasn't unbearable. He heard voices talking; familiar voices. He tried to focus on what they were saying, but his mind seemed unable to register and comprehend the familiar words.

'Forget it; I'm sure Creed and Gambit will be able to handle those two. Actually that's a point, what happened to Fatale?'

'Who cares? If I'm really lucky she's dead. I'm going to check on Scottie; he smacked his head pretty hard.'

Scott blinked his eyes open and saw nothing but darkness; a flash of pure terror whiplashed through him and Scott sat bolt upright.

'Whoa……easy there Scottie,' That same familiar voice came again, very close by. There were strong hands supporting him as he swayed and almost fell backwards; Scott instinctively fought off that hold, the voice may be familiar but it wasn't necessarily friendly.

'Alex?' Scott tried to raise his hands to his head and found that he could; he wasn't restrained. There was something wrapped around his head though, covering his eyes; he couldn't see and it felt like a strip of metal had been curved over his face. He clawed blindly at the impediment.

'Yep, it's me alright,' his brother's cheerful voice returned and he felt hands close on his scrabbling fingers pulling them away from his face, 'Don't try and remove the blindfold Scott; your visor was broken in the crash.'

Instantly Scott grew still, 'My visor?'

A tremor worked its way up his throat and into his voice. Without his visor he was not just blind, but dangerous to everyone around him. Another thought shot through him like a jolt of pure adrenaline that wiped all selfish concerns about his own vulnerability from his mind.

'Jean!.....The others! God, what happened to the team?'

Again the only thing that stopped him struggling blindly to his feet was his brother's arms restraining him.

'Easy big bro,' Alex waited until he stopped struggling, 'The team's fine; Jean's out cold with concussion - she tried to use her Telekinesis to rip the 'Bird free of Lorna's control and knocked herself out, but she'll be awake and fighting in no time.'

'Lorna's control…..?' Memory returned to Scott; he saw again the monstrous moment when the bizarre metal structure had attacked the Blackbird like a thing alive. He remembered the hull breach and Jean wrapping them all in a Telekinetic shield. He remembered Polaris, dressed in Malice's colours, enveloping the Blackbird in a magnetic shield as the limbs of her metallic tree curled around the plane. He remembered Jean's eyes firing with power as she tried to rip them free……and then he didn't remember anything else until this moment.

'Where is the rest of my team?' he demanded anger burning on a slow fuse fast gathering momentum as he twisted and grabbed blindly for his brother, 'Damn it Alex where are they?'

'Right beside you,' Alex deadpanned, 'In fact if you just reach to your left instead of trying to shake me to death, you'll be able to touch Jean.'

Scott couldn't resist even though he feared Alex was merely playing with him; he reached out to his left and his shaking fingers brushed over a soft cheek. He felt warm silky skin and the quiver of a supple mouth twitching under the run of his fingertips; even blind he recognised the contours of his wife's face. A wordless weight of fear dropped from his shoulders as Jean's strong, even, breathing tickled his fingers.

'Satisfied?' Alex sounded put out, 'Jesus Scott; I might try and kill _you_ but I'd never hurt Jean.'

Scott didn't say a word in response to that statement. Instead he fumbled blindly to check Jean over for any injuries, feeling out for wet spots of blood on her uniform and finding none. 'Where are the rest of the team?' he asked again, 'Are they hurt?'

He couldn't imagine the rest of the team remaining quiet and silent all this time under any other circumstances.

'Storm, Archangel, and Iceman are about a foot across from you; unconscious but not hurt. Wolverine and Bishop managed to bolt there inside the facility now.'

Alex sounded just a little anxious about that; Scott in contrast found himself greatly reassured. If two members of the team were free then soon all the members of the team would be. The fact that his team's best combat operatives were free heartened Scott greatly. Still Scott frowned, as something occurred to him.

'Why did they run?' he asked out loud before he could stop himself. It made no sense that Wolverine and Bishop would abandon vulnerable teammates. There had to be some reason they'd decide to leave Scott and the others to Alex and Lorna.

Alex actually laughed, 'What you mean instead of taking me and Lorna on?' he chuckled once more and Scott was struck again by just how little he knew his little brother. The malice and spite in him went so much deeper than Scott had ever imagined. 'Trust me Scott; none of you want to be messing with Lorna right now. She's on top of her game.'

'Lorna……not Malice?' Scott had not missed the fact that his brother had not once used the parasitic Marauder's name, despite the fact that Lorna was supposed to be possessed by it once more.

'Malice is me, and I'm Malice,' a new voice, equally familiar to Scott's ears, answered and Scott strained to hear the approach of Lorna's booted heels across the scorched grass.

'I've had to come to terms with that lately; the reason Sinister singled me out as a host, the reason Malice bonded to me so closely.' He heard the young woman sigh, 'I've hidden behind the lie so long but the truth is Malice was never the Marauder: I was. That evil was always me.'

Scott turned his head towards the sound of Lorna's voice and estimated that she stood a few feet away to his right. 'You're not possessed, are you?' he asked tiredly. It really did seem to him like the world had gone mad; was there some cosmic memo he'd missed instructing every other mutant to go to the dark side of something?

'No,' there was faint strain of regret in Lorna's voice as she answered but also conviction, 'No Scott, what I'm doing now I'm doing with full knowledge of the consequences.'

'Then why the pretence; why go through the charade of pretending to be possessed?' Scott had a lot more pertinent questions to ask but knew that he was not in a strong negotiating position right now. He needed to start slow and see what Alex and Lorna were prepared to let slip.

'Gambit,' he heard a certain rueful affection in Lorna's tone, 'He wanted to sow a few seeds of misdirection with you and X-Factor; mostly however he thought that if you all thought I was possessed I wouldn't be held accountable for my actions.' She snorted sourly, 'I think he was trying to be chivalrous; I told him to shove it, but I suppose it's his southern upbringing.'

Scott's attention was rapt, 'Gambit's here isn't he?

He turned his head towards his brother who remained crouched beside him, either to grab him in case he tried something or to support him should he fall. Scott wasn't sure which and didn't really want to know the answer; the failure on his part to form a healthy bond with his little brother was a constant burn in his chest. He wanted to at least pretend that Alex wouldn't spit on his grave should it come to it.

'Don't look at me,' Alex scoffed in answer to his empathic look, 'I'm just a contractor; this is Lorna and Gambit's show all the way.'

Scott struggled with that idea; it wasn't just the notion of Gambit as a mastermind or that he and Lorna, relative strangers to each other, were working so closely together that made his head hurt. It wasn't even the strange fact that Alex seemed happy to follow their lead that did it either; instead it was all of those factors combined that proved almost more than he could fathom.

'Shit,' he hissed vehemently, 'That's where Bishop and Wolverine have gone, isn't it?' The realisation coalesced in his foggy mind, 'They've gone after Gambit.'

'And Creed,' Lorna confirmed, 'You've all taken the bait like real suckers; now we just need to see if the biggest fish of all is going to come take a bite.'

Scott frowned, 'Biggest fish of all?' he blinked behind his metal blindfold and felt his jaw clench as he forced the name from between gritted teeth, _'Mr Sinister.'_

* * *

Smashing into three hundred pounds of muscle was a little bit like deliberately trying to throw yourself at a wall; it hurt – a lot. Still Gambit forced himself to hold on, wrapping his long legs around the Dark Beast's muscular mid-rift and digging his fingers into the coarse hair of the man's neck ruff. Once he was entwined like poison ivy around the other man he let gravity take its course.

They hit the floor, rolling to a stop and Gambit, who, despite his formal training in a number of combat styles, still fought like a street rat at heart, darted his head forward like a cobra and tried to bite McCoy's ear off a la Mike Tyson.

'Oooooowwwwch!' the Bête Noir raked him with his stubby, but vicious (not to mention filthy) claws across the chest in an attempt to tear him off him. Remy tasted thin copper blood in his mouth as he kept his teeth locked in place and felt five rivulets of liquid fire gouge down his chest.

Mon dieu but he missed his combat armour right now; his light weight thief's gear was no use in a mutant battle.

Deciding to fight fire with fire, metaphorically speaking, the Dark Beast took a leaf out of the Lebeau book of dirty tricks and set his large, flat molars into the flesh of Remy's left shoulder where it curved up into his throat. Pain immediate and sharp blossomed inside Remy's mind. He let go of McCoy's ear and kicked with his feet.

The pair rolled across the ground in a bizarre parody of a schoolyard fight; blood, red and hot, arced into the air and sprayed across the metal plated floor. The sounds of snarling, hisses of pain, and the scuff of booted feet scrambling on steel was a familiar melody of violence; neither elegant nor heroic.

Gambit ended up coming out of one roll on top for a split second but a vicious uppercut to the jaw knocked him onto his back with McCoy leering down on him. Remy bucked like mule and dislodged the Dark Beast.

Scrambling to his feet he pulled free of his pocket a brace of throwing spikes but did not charge them. He threw himself lurching at the Bête Noir once more. This time it was McCoy who sent him flying with a double footed kick to the sternum that hurt more than Gambit wanted to contemplate. He kept hold of his fistful of blades through sheer stubbornness alone.

D'accord, looked like it was time to pull out the big guns now. In other words it was time to cheat.

With deliberation Remy swooned, dropping artfully to one knee and drooping his head. His bangs obscured his face as he concentrated on projecting the vibe of a wounded bird. The blood pouring from the bite in his neck and the burning claw marks down his chest helped the illusion no end. He let the hand holding the blades drop lifelessly to the floor.

Come and get me homme; all you can eat Cajun buffet.

Just when Remy suspected he'd have to fall onto his side and really play dead – or at least grievously injured – McCoy's inner jackal won out. Snarling a laugh of pure blood lust the Bête Noir launched himself at Remy.

It wasn't until the bouncing Dark Beast was on the downward curve of his leap that Gambit looked up, red eyes narrowed, and face bright with a scything smirk. A hot flash of pure triumph lit through his mind as he saw McCoy's eyes widen in the frozen fragment of time between action and consequence.

'Noooo!' McCoy came down on top of Remy, claws headed for his face. Remy ducked his head, feeling those nasty black nails rake through his scalp and take hanks of hair from his head; the brilliant blades of pain that shot through him at that were a small price to pay however as his fistful of throwing blades slammed into the Dark Beast's diaphragm. The force it took to drive those blades home through the thick wall of muscle snapped his wrist, but Remy didn't care.

Le Bête Noir stared at him, huge head inches from Remy's face, 'You….?' Blood bubbled from his lips. They were both panting hard which only forced more of the dark arterial blood to flow. A saliva rich spatter of that scarlet fluid hit Gambit's cheek and ran down his chin.

'…..oui…' he gasped out, slammed up against the wall by the weight of McCoy's body on top of him, '….I did.'

McCoy blinked his one good eye at him, glazed and uncomprehending and then, much to Gambit's unease he grinned abruptly, teeth painted with his own blood, 'Black Womb.' He croaked, 'Now I understand; the serpent is returning to the Garden.'

'Quoi?' A fine shaking had taken hold of Remy's limbs, part spent adrenaline, partly due to pain, and part realisation, now his own battle-lust had left him, of what he had done. Mon Dieu, what had he done?

The dark Beast rose slowly from Gambit, the four adamantium slithers of blade still embedded in his chest. There was not much blood, mostly because of all his fur and partly because the blades stopped the flow. He peered at Remy one-eyed and did not try to remove the blades; he knew better.

'Oho but I should have seen it before; I know Sinister's work like I know my own.' He cackled in phlegmy fashion and continued to peer at Gambit. 'A generation removed perhaps, but I see it now; you have Black Womb written all over you my Acadian murderer. You are the serpent for the Garden; Sinister finally did it, after all these years.'

Gambit tensed but could not force himself to move, 'Black Womb?……what is dat? What is de Black Womb?'

Le Bête Noir's knees buckled but this was no feint. Blood congealed on his lips and matted in the hair of his chin. His one peering blue eye flared with triumph.' He snickered thickly and cruelly, 'Oh my poor deluded tool; don't you understand that most rudimentary function of your conception?'

Gambit stopped breathing and it felt like acid bile filled his lungs, 'Conception?' he choked.

The Dark Beast slumped onto his side; the life ebbing from his one open eye, legs kicking as the fall jarred those throwing blades deeper into fragile flesh.

'No! Answer me damn you!'

Gambit forced his numbed limbs into motion and scrambled on his knees and one hand, to the fallen Beast's side. 'De Garden…..tell me where it is!'

* * *

Bishop followed Wolverine at a run; the shorter man was like a bloodhound on a scent and had tracked Gambit's trail throughout the warren of interlocking hallways making up the sub-level of the base.

'Gumbo an' McCoy……down the next corridor,' Wolverine growled over his shoulder. Bishop un-holstered the plasma rifle he had found abandoned on the ground one floor above them.

'McCoy?' he queried.

'Not ours,' Wolverine snorted sourly and Bishop understood. It was clear that this facility had been designed to hold prisoners but most of the cells had been empty. So this was where the Dark Beast had ended up? Still, that did not explain Gambit's interest in either the Beast doppelganger or the Beta-Star complex.

A crash, a howled shout barely even human, reached his ears and both he and Wolverine picked up the already breakneck pace. So intent, in fact, was Bishop on Lebeau that he failed to see the figure hidden in the shadow of a doorway until it was too late.

The plasma rifle was knocked from his hands by a clawed fist as the seven foot Sabretooth tackled him to the ground.

'Tag, yer it,' Claws glinted in the flickering fluorescent lighting. Bishop struggled to raise an arm to block the strike aimed at his throat. A second later Wolverine ploughed into Sabretooth and knocked him away from Bishop.

Blood splayed across the walls as the two Canadians ripped into each other, snarling like junkyard dogs. Wolverine, capitalising on the element of surprise, managed to get ahead in the first round and pinned Creed to the ground. With one hand raised, bloodied claws extended, Wolverine turned back to Bishop.

'Go get the Cajun; Creed's mine.'

Bishop did not need to be told twice, scooping up the plasma rifle he took off running in the direction Wolverine had been heading; the sounds of a fight to the death ringing in his ears both at his back and before him.

* * *

The Dark Beast grinned at him, 'No.' He said with dreadful simplicity, 'I don't think I shall tell you where the Garden is.' He laughed wetly and that was the last thing he said or did as he hitched a shuddering breath and resolutely closed his one good eye.

Gambit recoiled; he knew the Dark Beast was not dead yet, as the man was still breathing, but the sight of the man lying there, impaled on his spikes and bloodied, finally registered through his adrenaline drunk senses.

'No?' he whispered; after all this, the man was going to refuse to tell him what he needed to know?

A hot rush of rage and frustration surged through Remy and that was why he withdrew from the Dark Beast. He ducked his head and curled his glowing, blood stained uninjured hand into a fist; his broken wrist lay limply against his thigh.

'Non, no…..I won't do dis,' he whispered. The corridor spun, the walls melting and the very air singing to him a siren song of violence and motion.

He folded inward, his hands tucked against his chest as he leaned forward over his own knees to brush his forehead against the cool slick metal of the floor. His heart thundered in his chest and he tasted blood and bile on his tongue; he had been inches away from stabbing the Dark Beast again just to force him to talk.

He closed his eyes tight against the panic that beat against his chest; palpitating against the confines of his skull. His power flared; luridly brilliant energy dripping from the hem of his coat, spreading out across the floor until the entire corridor thrummed with energy.

Gambit rocked struggling to breathe, struggling to hold in the panic and the power inside him. Behind his eyes time stretched and truncated; fire and motion and the dizzying whirl of chance and inevitability made him sick.

A shadow fell, long, and undaunted, across the length of the rippling, glowing corridor. Gambit jerked his head up; even his skin was glowing with the power he struggled to contain, but his vision was clear as he stared at the figure watching him dispassionately.

He stared into a pair of cold red eyes in a milk pale face; he saw the red diamond mounted above those eyes burn.

'Hello Remy; I think we should talk.'

Sinister smiled and Remy dropped his head to the floor once more. Gambit took one shuddering breath and surrendered. His powers flared and the corridor exploded.


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter Twenty-Two: Conflagration**

Gambit's powers flared and the world exploded; all was shadow and light.

Sinister moved like melting candle-wax allowing the molecules of his being to shift and alter as he oozed across the floor and enveloped the unconscious thief in a cocoon of non-organic flesh. The walls and ceiling of the corridor, and the entire section of the building directly above the corridor, collapsed inwards.

The collapse was not as severe as it might have been, however. Gambit's wildly flaring powers atomised much of the debris before it could crush those caught at the epicentre of the explosion; those further away within the complex should have counted themselves very lucky indeed.

* * *

Bishop had been about to round the corner to the corridor where Gambit and Dark Beast had fought when the explosion rocketed through the complex. He was knocked from his feet as a wash of lurid pink-white energy, not hot and not cold, sliced through the walls, the floor, and the very air.

Bishop was instantly caught in the maelstrom that was Gambit's biokinetic charge; his body filled to the limit of every individual cell with effervescent, stinging power. His presence and automatic absorption of the charge just about maintained the integrity of the section of sub-basement he was in and stopped Gambit's power from spreading throughout the sub-basement in its entirety.

The ceiling just ahead of Bishop collapsed completely sending a choking, blinding tsunami cloud of dust and concrete mortar racing towards him. Bishop was left gasping, eyes streaming, and arms over his head on the ground as larger pieces of debris pelted down on him.

* * *

Wolverine and Creed both scented the sharp, heated, static taint to the air that both men categorised from experience as Gambit's charge, a split second before the sub-basement quaked with the force of the near soundless explosion. Seconds later the supply room they had occupied in their bid to rip each other limb from limb suddenly filled with a miasma of dust, mortar, and other debris.

Creed bared his teeth through a ruined face, one eye leaking down his cheek and one side of his mouth torn away, giving him a perpetual leer.

'Cajun's blown a gasket.' He snickered, spraying blood from between shattered teeth.

'Looks like,' Wolverine shifted out of his predators crouch gingerly, protecting his healing torso. The vicious gash across his flank had laid him open in the lower abdomen and a fold of purple veined intestine poked out of the tear.

Blinding dust, still carrying the pinkish shimmer of Gambit's charge, obscured all sight. The two men less than three feet from each other could not see the other. The dust was thick enough with atomised stone, steel, and concrete that hearing was also difficult. Down two senses the two combatants should have called it a day.

Alas neither Wolverine nor Sabretooth saw it that way. Blind and deaf, mutilated and bleeding profusely, they met in a headlong charge and continued their seemingly futile, endless, battle.

* * *

Scott heard the almighty subterranean growl and felt the ground shiver under him, but without his sight he could not really tell what had just happened. Instantly tense, trying to strain his remaining senses to the limit, he had never felt more useless than he did now.

'Mary and Jospeph…..what was that?' He heard Alex, and reached out blindly for his brother. It was an instinctual response to his brother's surprise and concern. He might be a lousy big brother, but he was still a big brother; even blind he wanted to protect Alex.

'What is it; some kind of explosion?' he demanded, grasping at his brother's arm.

'Did you see the building glow?' Lorna spoke over him, 'That looked like Gambit's power; shit he could have brought the whole basement down on his head.'

'Lorna……wait!….You can't just charge in there…..'

Alex jerked away from Scott's grip, 'Alex!'

He heard running footsteps and tried to surge upright to his feet and chase blindly after his brother. Two things stopped him; one was the gentle touch to his mind and the second was the restraining hand on his shoulder. He sucked in a breath of pure relief; Jean, it was Jean.

'Scott it's me; let me get that metal band off your head.' He turned blindly towards Jean's voice, hearing the worry and intensity therein.

'Jean? What's happening; are you okay?' he closed his eyes tightly as he felt the tingle of Jean's telekinesis dance like fingers of warm air over his face and skull.

'I'm fine Scott, just a headache.' He could almost imagine her sour smile as she spoke the next words, 'I'm going to have some words with Lorna when all this is sorted out.'

_I've already telepathically woken the others; they're playing dead for the moment. Lorna is trying to magnetically pull the debris from the explosion out of the way so she can enter the building; Alex is trying to caution her. This is our chance to break free._

The telepathic contact was fast as thought and a moment later Scott felt the pinching weight of the metal band around his head come free. Instantly he raised his hands to cover both his eyes, even though he had no intention of opening his eyes.

'Damn; I was hoping Alex was lying about the visor. The ruby quartz is shattered and if you use your power you'll blow the quartz right out.'

Scott nodded, 'How long have you been playing possum?'

'Long enough,' he heard Jean moving around and he imagined that she was telekinetically removing the restraints from the others as she spoke, 'The building's collapsed from the inside out; it's like a bomb went off and there's this big, sunken hole in the centre of one of the main structures.'

'Wolverine and Bishop?' Scott asked sharply.

'I'm trying to reach them now.' Jean was equally terse as she stretched her senses out. There was a scramble of sound.

'Man-o-man, this is not my idea of a good time,' Bobby dropped down beside Scott and he shivered involuntarily at the wash of chill air that rose from Iceman's ice-form.

'Ooops, sorry Fearless,' Bobby shifted a little bit further away.

'What's the plan Slim?' Warren's voice came from somewhere nearby but above him; Scott estimated that his friend was standing a foot or so away from where Scott knelt on the grass. Sick of the implied weakness of his position Scott surged to his feet. A hand came out to steady him as he rose.

'Thank you Storm.' He nodded to where he imagined the woman was standing. He received no response. Blindly, with his eyes still resolutely squeezed closed, he turned his head from one side to the other hopefully sweeping across the members of his team he could not see.

'I need a status report,' he commanded.

'We-ll, okay,' Bobby began mischief in his voice, 'The sit-rep is that we are royally fucked, O fearless one, and it's all Gambit's fault.'

'Robert!' Storm spoke up for the first time, anger snapping in her tone.

'What?' Iceman whined with exaggerated hurt in his voice, 'It's true! You heard what Alex said: this was Gambit's plan. He played us all Scott, and for all we know he brought that building down right on top of Wolverine and Bishop.'

Scott frowned, 'How do you know Gambit blew the building; how can you be sure?'

'Because the whole structure glowed pink before the roof caved in, Cyke.' Warren shifted and Scott could hear the ruffle of his wing feathers as he did so, 'If you'd seen it you'd know it was Gambit too. I think we've got to face the fact that Gambit is hostile; we have to treat him like we would any other threat to the X-men.'

'_No_!' Jean's sharp gasp silenced any further comments. Scott turned sightlessly towards his wife mouth opening to ask what was wrong; or rather what was wrong _now_.

'Scott we have to get into that building right now! I've got mental contact with Bishop; he says that Sinister's in there with Gambit!'

* * *

Bishop had managed to blast away the rubble blocking the hallway using the energy he had absorbed from Gambit's explosive charge. He now stood at the end of the ruined hallway with one hand on either side of what remained of the walls trying to drain every last erg of remaining charge still active from the surrounding area.

The hallway was still standing for the most part. The greatest damage from to the ceiling; there was a huge hole directly above the head of the tall, cloaked man facing Bishop. Wiring, steel beams, and broken tube lighting dangled from what remained of the ceiling above Bishop's head; there was even a severely dented filing cabinet lying in the heap of rumble at the epicentre of the blast that had apparently fallen from several floors above.

Live wires hissed and sparked against exposed steel support beams and broken concrete, sending spears of brilliant luminance and jagged bolts of shadow dancing over the wreckage. Water poured through the hole from a ruptured water pipe above. The whole sub-basement seemed to hold its breath, on the cusp of another disaster.

Somehow and for some reason the explosion had moved upwards, straight through the many levels of the complex, instead of spreading outwards; it was for this reason only that anyone in the sub-basement at the time of the blast still lived at all.

The air twisted in unnatural eddies and ripples, striated with flashing white sparks, deep black swathes of shadow and lurid fuchsia pinpricks. In most cases the dust hanging in the choking air still popped and crackled with pinkish light as Gambit's charge still thrummed in the walls; quietly devouring and igniting any matter it could reach until the point where another explosion would be imminent.

'Release Gambit now,' Bishop spoke very levelly and in commanding tone; he knew it would do him no good whatsoever.

The caped man standing in the midst of the dust and debris like a god upon a dais of destruction, arched an eyebrow, 'Indeed I shall not; Gambit is my property. I have come to reclaim him as such.'

Bishop tensed. Gambit was clearly unconscious dangling from Sinister's hand by the lapels of his tattered trench coat; blood congealed around his closed eyes and matted his hair. Where his limp hands fell upon the debris pink sparks leaked into the stone and concrete.

Gambit was in fact, glowing a rippling white-pink even insensate; he no longer resembled a being of flesh and blood but seemed instead to have taken on the lustre of one of his charged cards. In Bishop's opinion that was perhaps the most worrying aspect of all; Gambit was a low burning fuse ready to ignite at any moment.

'I do not think he would see it as such.' Bishop replied carefully hoping Sinister would not detect the SOS message he was broadcasting to Jean.

Bishop had once shot Sinister directly in the head with a point blank plasma rifle blast. The other 'man' had continued to mock him even as the massive hole closed in his forehead. Bishop knew there was nothing he could do to harm Sinister and little he would dare to do with Gambit a hostage.

'I fail to see why I should care,' Sinister hauled the unconscious Cajun up one handed and threw him over his shoulder like a roll of carpet; the wild crackle of Gambit's powers did not seem to affect Sinister at all. 'Move; or I will _remove_ you from my path.'

_Jean - your assistance is required!_

Bishop held firm and readied himself to take whatever Sinister threw at him; curiously he wondered why the mad geneticist did not simply summon a tessaract portal to make his escape.

'Very well,' Sinister nodded dispassionately, 'You are of limited interest to my studies; your life is of no value.' Sinister raised one hand. Bishop prepared himself accordingly. Neither man noticed when Gambit woke up.

* * *

'Are you quite warm enough my dear?'

Dr Henry Hank McCoy bounded into the medlab bearing a neatly folded pile of sweaters raided from the laundry; he did not think the women of the house would protest lending a few items of apparel to Threnody until such time as clothing could be purchased for her.

The young lady in question looked up from the medical journal she had been reading and smiled at him somewhat wanly but with genuine enthusiasm. 'Thank you Dr McCoy; I am very comfortable.'

Hank nodded with a smile, 'Marvellous; I must say that it is a great pleasure and comfort to me to see you so well and settled, my dear.'

Which was no less than the truth, however the evidence that all it took to keep Threnody calm and lucid was a psi-dampening shield struck him to the heart; what had he been thinking handing this young woman over to Sinister? Worst of all it did not appear that Sinister had made any effort to help the lady control her power.

The smile left Hank's face he grew acutely uncomfortable as he always did when assailed by guilt, 'Would you like something to drink, or perhaps another of my world renowned BLT's?'

Threnody smiled again but shook her head, 'You are very kind to me; but I am quite fine.' Idly she reached out to touch the gauzy folds of the psi-dampener, 'Must I stay under this forever, Dr McCoy?'

Hank blinked, 'Good heavens no, this is just a temporary measure until we can begin to work on allowing you to gain control of your own mutation.' He paused, 'And please call me Hank or,' he mock shuddered, 'if you feel the need me to mock me with approbation, then I will submit to the occasional use of the moniker 'Hankster'.

Threnody's smile was truly lovely, more so because of it's power to transform her too thin and gaunt face into a vision of beauty and carefree joy. 'Hank then, thank you.'

She ducked her head ostensively to continue her reading but Hank suspected it was also a mark of submission; He frowned that would not do at all.

Hank found himself hovering before the bed unsure what to do, 'Ahem, perhaps I could find you something more stimulating to read? I have it on good authority, or at least that of a consensus, that my medical journals do not make riveting reading.'

Threnody looked up at him wide eyed and subconsciously clutched the journal closer to her, 'May I not continue to read this? It has been a very long time since I have read about medicine.'

Hank was intrigued and he peered at the woman behind the sheeting with open curiosity, 'You enjoy reading about medicine?'

Threnody would not meet his eyes but she nodded, gaze averted. She spoke in a ghost of a whisper, 'Once….once I wished to be a nurse.'

Abruptly she speared him with her eyes, hot and dark and swimming with pain. 'I was not always like this!' her voice rose, a sharp edge of hysteria cracking her vowels, 'I was not always this…this…' she trailed off and Hank almost poked a hole in the delicate Shi' ar mesh of the psi-dampener as he reached for her instinctively.

'Oh my dear, please do not cry.' Threnody looked up at him, tears standing to attention in her doe eyes. She raised one hand to the dampener to press her palm against the mesh over his own. Hank swallowed around the sudden dryness in his throat.

'You may read any and all the medical journals you wish, my dear.' He said awkwardly and rather sharply cleared his throat before continuing, 'In fact you must tell me how far your nursing training had progressed; I would be glad of a lab assistant.' He smiled tentatively.

Threnody took a deep breath, 'You would permit to aid your work?'

'Permit? No, I should be delighted for the help,' he insisted. 'If you wish to grant it, that is,' he hastened to add, 'you are under no obligation Threnody, to myself or any under this roof. You are not a prisoner, but a guest.'

Threnody beamed at him and this time it was Hank who turned away under the pretence of cleaning his spectacles.

'I wish to help you, Dr…..' she quickly corrected herself, 'I mean _Hank_…..I wish to help you.' She fluttered her fingers down the fold of the psi dampener and shimmers of rainbow light followed the motion, making her smile. When she looked up again however her eyes were serious.

'I waited and I learned,' she said intently, leaning forward in the bed under the dampening sheet.

'Sinister saw me only as a tool, but I learned what I could, when I could. I knew that one day, one day…..' she swallowed and gathered herself before continuing, 'I knew that one day I would be able to tell you of what I had learned and that knowledge would aid you.'

Hank grew tense down his spine, 'What did you learn Threnody?' he asked carefully.

Threnody smiled beatifically, 'I know where the Garden is.'

* * *

Creed was raw meat oozing on the floor; Logan raised his head and scented the clogged air with a snarl he took off down the corridor, abandoning his kill. Creed might recover or he might not and right now Logan didn't care; he had team mates who needed him.

Victor Creed waited until Wolverine's scent trail grew cold before he opened his eyes and started breathing again. He lay there for another few moments allowing himself to heal. A sharp smirk scythed over his ruined face; unless he missed his guess everything was going down exactly as the punk said it would.

He had to hand it to Lebeau; he sure knew how to organise one hell of a right royal fuck up. It was practically the punk's speciality and he'd done himself proud this time.

Sabretooth lay on the ground while his internal organs reformed and his crushed trachea repaired itself, barely breathing through each agonising moment after agonising moment. He entertained himself throughout with the thought that Sinister and the X-men had no clue what was coming at them.

No fucking clue.

* * *

Bishop did not scream as the lance of cold red energy slammed into him and drove him back into the rubble of the partially blocked passageway. Even though his mutant powers saved his life, and siphoned much of Sinister's energy into his own cells, the blast still hurt; as did the impact with solid stone and concrete.

Instinctively, as aftershocks of black and red danced before his eyes, Bishop raised his fists and fired back at Sinister. The X-man's most insidious foe simply allowed the blasts to pass through his malleable form and re-formed his flesh around the exit holes. Proudly and undaunted Sinister stepped down from his dais of rubble with Lebeau still dangling over his shoulder.

'Persistence does not dictate quality mutant; desist and you may live.' Cold red eyes burned down at him indifferently. 'You may possess the mutant genome to absorb and convert all forms of energy projected at yourself, but I assure you that power will not save you from me.'

Bishop let his actions speak for him and fired again, this time allowing his aim to stray close to hitting Gambit. He did not truly wish to hurt Lebeau but he did wonder if the threat of injury to Gambit might give him leverage against Sinister. The narrowing of those red-ice eyes and the flare of light in the diamond mounted upon the other man's forehead suggested that Sinister was, indeed, unwilling to risk Gambit in an altercation.

'You have just forfeited your life, mutant.' Sinister curled his lips, razor teeth, like a piranha's maw, displayed. Bishop readied himself to absorb another lancing blow. Sinister raised one almost languid hand.

'……Wouldn' do dat if I were you….homme….' the voice shattered the stalemate. Bishop's eyes jerked to the limp body still draped over Sinister's shoulder even as Sinister shifted and dumped Gambit onto the ground at his feet.

'Explain Lebeau,' He demanded. Gambit was slumped over, half on his side where he had landed, but he forced his drooping head up so that he could grin, somewhat maniacally, at Sinister. His eyes sparked through a patina of thick black blood in a glowing face.

'Look behind you, homme.'

Sinister twitched but before he could either look behind him or not a figure materialised from thin air right at his back wrist blades drawn.

'Kai-ya!'

Fatale snap kicked Sinister in the face at point blank range and at the same instant Gambit snatched Bishop by the sleeve and dragged himself to his feet.

'Blast 'em!' he snarled at Bishop.

Bishop blasted.

* * *

Rogue paced back and forth inside the confines of the War Room, waiting for word that the mission team was coming home safe with Remy in tow. So far there had been no word at all from any of the team and when she tried to raise the Blackbird she got nothing but static for her trouble.

'Something's wrong, sugar.' She gnawed on her lip.

The man lounging in one of the metal backed chairs arrayed around the War Room table did not bother to look up at her as he laid out another hand of solitaire. 'You t'ink chere; what was you firs' clue?'

Rogue frowned. 'Ya know sugar, ah think ah like ya better when ya guilty an' meek,' she muttered darkly.

The Remy shade raised his head to smirk at her, 'I know; why you t'ink de real me ran out an' left wit'out tellin' you, eh?'

Rogue's teeth bit down hard on her bottom lip; that betrayal still hurt badly. She couldn't understand why he had planned to leave without a word to her. Well, okay, she could understand why he might not have anything _good _to say to her, but to just up and go without any word at all? That was just cowardly.

'Ah'm tryin' ta help now.' She pointed out, and even to her own ears she sounded a little whiny. The Remy shade, today in another of his sleek dark suits with a narrow scarlet tie and black shirt, drew a cigarette from an ornate silver engraved cigarette box and flicked a contemptuous look at her from under the fall of his hair.

'You ever t'ink mebbe de real me, he don' want your help chere?' he smiled sharply, voice slithering around the cold steel encased room with all its blank screens and dead monitors, 'Mebbe, jus' mebbe, you had your chance already an' you blew it, non?'

Rogue clenched her fists, 'Ah ain't goin' ta listen ta that; ya just sayin' these things ta mess with me.'

'No,' the shade purred playing with the unlit cigarette between his fingers, 'I'm saying what you be thinking, mostly on account of de fact that I be a figment of your imagination, chere; not my fault you ain't all dat hopeful for forgiveness, eh?'

'Remy will…' she hesitated, 'He'll understand when ah explain to him why ah had to leave him…..he won't…..he don't hate me.' Rogue turned away and fussed with one of the keypads on the control desk under the main view-screen. She could feel the cold burn of the shade's cynical eyes searing into her exposed back.

'He'll understan'?' The shade chuckled darkly and a moment later the acrid stench of cigarette smoke wafted through the room, 'You mean like I _understood _when you went an' talked to Creed behind my back? When you went an' took de word of a psycho over mine 'bout what happened in Paris; that de understanding you looking for, eh?'

Rogue spun around to face him, 'Wha….Remy we been over that! Ah told ya….'

The shade cut her off, 'Ah oui, you _told _me an' I just had to shut up an' take it.'

Cruelty twisted his features as he rose smoothly from the chair and stalked around the table to face her, 'Did you think that made it okay chere?' he hissed pulling the cigarette from his lips, smoke billowing from his nostrils.

'You t'ink just because you wan' do somet'ing, go pryin' int' a past you don' have no part in, dat I jus' gon be okay wit' dat? Did you t'ink it wouldn't hurt me to have you hatin' on me for somet'ing dat din't have _a God damned fucking t'ing to do wit' you?' _

Rogue recoiled from him; she knew the shade couldn't hurt her, hell even the real Remy couldn't physically hurt her, but the cold, biting rage that faced her now……it scared her. She had never seen Remy this angry; she wasn't sure what he was capable of like this.

The shade hedged her in against the control booth with an arm either side of her head. He leaned into her face, hot breath and tobacco filling her senses.

'Did you t'ink I wasn't angry when I find out you touched Belle…..dat you _hurt_ her, for no good reason! You t'ink I was okay wit' de fact dat Belle lose her memory, a piece of her soul, because you were too God damned scared to jus' ask me, or hell, even let me _show you_ how I felt for you?'

Rogue swallowed hard; she wanted to turn away from that venomous gaze but didn't dare. She licked her lips and tried to defend herself, 'That was an accident…..Belle she moved and…..'

'An Accident?' The shade turned from her in utter contempt tugging angrily on the lapels of his jacket, 'It funny, no, dat when you do somet'ing wrong it an' _'accident'_ but if I do somet'ing wrong – an' admit to it! – it's a fucking hangin' offence.'

Rogue refused to let the tears fall; she was close to shaking and her heart felt like it just might pound itself to pieces in the cage of her ribs.

'If ya hate me so much why'd ya keep pretendin' that ya love me?' she demanded rallying.

If she was that bad a person why hadn't Remy just left her years ago; why'd he act like he still cared about her if he felt like this underneath? Rogue felt a flare of fortifying anger light inside her; this just proved the man was a God damned liar and coward.

The shade turned back to her an expression of outrage blossoming over his sharp features, 'Mon dieu; don' you get it femme? I don' hate you, de real me don' hate you. Sacre Dieu it be easier if'n we _could_ hate you.'

He shook his head and raked his fingers through his hair trying to calm himself; Rogue noted in some distant part of her mind that his cigarette had vanished. He looked up at her head still in his hands.

'I ain't de real Remy, I'm just his past dat you absorbed, but even _I_ love you chere, more den life, I love you – an' so does de real me.' He swallowed in a deep breath and shook his head again, more calmly this time.

'It don' matter how many times you betrayed my trust, went behind my back, decided dat you don trust me, den you do, den you don't, den you ain't sure….' He cut himself off sharply with a chopping motion of his hand and a disgusted curl of his lip.

'None o' dat crap mattered chere, because I believed dat deep down you were wort' it; dat one day we'd put all our shit behind us an' be happy together.'

'Remy….' Rogue almost involuntarily moved towards him, warmed by his words. He stopped her with an upraised hand.

'One time Rogue, one time dat de real me needed you to forgive him, to trust in him as he be now, not as _I_ was den…..an' you blew it, chere.'

Rogue stopped dead; she stared at him mute and cold under her skin. Those eyes simply gazed at her cold and remote. Slowly he opened his arms out to the side as if making an offering of himself.

'I am my past,' he said, 'Everyt'ing de real me was, is what I am; can't be changed, can't be fixed.'

The shade sighed and turned his head away, hawk-like in profile, as he gazed down at the abandoned game of solitaire spread out across the table. After a long moment of deep silence he looked back up at her, his expression still remote as carved marble.

'I forgave you every bad t'ing you ever done or ever will do; I loved de woman you are and could be chere; pinned my future on you – an' de one time I needed you to return de favour you left me wit _not'ing_.'

Rogue wanted him to stop; she wanted to plug her ears so she didn't have to hear the rest. She couldn't however; she couldn't escape his voice in the confines of her own mind.

The man who wasn't her Remy but had once tried to be that person for her watched her solemnly and when he spoke again his voice was low and flat. 'I never claimed to be a saint chere; I only claimed to love you.'

The first of Rogue's tears fell, 'Ah didn't mean ta hurt ya….ah…'

The shade wasn't listening and instead he returned to his seat and ruffled his deck of cards, not looking at her. When he spoke again the words he used were as offhand as they were deadly.

'So you tell me chere, how many more times am I gon have to forgive you de hurt you cause me befor' I'm good enough for you to love, eh?'

Rogue swallowed and tried to formulate a response. She opened her mouth but no sound came out and no words formed. The reason was a simple one; she could not answer because she did not have an answer to give.

* * *

Chaos was a tricky thing to orchestrate; folks might think chaos just happened but they were wrong. Chaos took time to plan, to build and to nurture; Remy Lebeau should know, he'd made chaos his vocation for years.

As he watched Bishop blast Sinister and Fatale into the ground, dislodging a miniature landslide of rubble and debris and revealing the Dark Beast's battered form underneath it all, Remy had to commend himself on this set-piece. This was one hell of a mess and no mistaking.

He was particularly proud of the inclusion of Fatale into the mix; even he hadn't seen that one coming. Then again all he did was deal the game; he didn't dictate how the players played their hands.

Slumped on his knees, too exhausted to think too hard or too long about anything, Remy probably would have patiently waited mildly concussed, for Essex to finish ripping Fatale down to her component DNA, if it hadn't been for the imposing, somewhat angry, X-man at his side.

'This way Gambit,' Bishop's rough hold on him snapped Remy back to attention.

He did not try and break Bishop's hold on his one good wrist as he didn't think he had the energy or the strength to do it. Instead he concentrated on staying upright and conscious as Bishop shoved him through the small hole in the wall of debris half blocking the passageway.

Mon dieu he hurt all over.

Pain like a living thing jumped and skittered across every nerve and synapse; a whimper escaped him as Bishop grabbed his broken wrist to haul him up over a pile of concrete and he had to physically bite his tongue not to cuss the big black man out for it. Eh, it not like it was Bishop's fault he gone and got himself beat up and he didn't suppose the X-men were going to be feeling that warmly disposed towards him anyhow.

'Hurry Gambit,' Bishop was shoving and tugging at him and it was only belatedly that Remy realised he had fallen to his knees in a hallway that was relatively intact. His head reeled and his vision exploded in black and white dots.

'Mon dieu, t'ink I'm gon be sick.'

That was another thing about chaos; it cost a body dear. Chaos wasn't like order, which was by its very nature, _orderly _and regimented following set parameters and familiar patterns. Chaos was blood and tears and passion; chaos was spontaneity and life and death decisions made on the edge. Remy Lebeau had been Mama Chaos' bitch for years.

'Now is not the time, Gambit.' A pair of strong arms curved under Remy's armpits and tried to drag him to his feet. Remy did not appreciate the indignity at all. If he wanted to pass out in a pool of his own blood and vomit in the midst of the disaster he had caused he would do so, damn it.

'Hey!' He struggled, not effectively but with vigour; it sure as hell wasn't like he wanted to be taken the X-men, right? Wasn't the whole reason for this last stand the fact that he'd decided that he wasn't just going to wait, dumb as a stump, for the X-men to find out the truth and condemn him? No way in Heaven or Hell he was going to go meekly to his own execution; there was no X-man save his Stormy who had a right to judge him. Damn, Remy wasn't even sure he was prepared to accept judgement from Stormy anymore.

'Leggo o' me; connard!' he snarled and shook free of Bishop, managing only to topple forward flat on his face on the floor as reward for his efforts.

'_Lebeau _we must go!'

Bishop who had fully working limbs and had not just brought a building down on top of his head won the battle and pulled Gambit to his feet. The big man slung an arm under his shoulders to keep him upright and propelled him along. Remy having exhausted himself in pointless struggling, let his head drop between his shoulders and stumbled along.

Yet another thing about chaos; sometimes it rebounded back on a body and bit you right up the ass.

* * *

'Jean I need my powers!'

Scott had no idea what the scale of the damage was. He could hear the squeal and crash of falling masonry and twisting metal as Lorna, Alex, and the others put aside any real or imagined enmity to work together to clear access to the building.

_Scott – I'm not sure…it's risky._

Jean did not try and pretend that she didn't know what he was asking. Once upon a time, a quieter, more peaceful time, before they were married, Jean had used her telekinetic power to hold back his blasts during a day out on the beach. If she could do that now, take control of the flow of his optic blasts, he could help the team get inside the complex.

'What choice do we have honey?' he retorted simply.

_You're right; take off the shades Scott and let's do this._

'Everyone get back; I'm going to blast it.' Scott had no idea how the rest of the team reacted to his statement because he could not see. He wasn't even sure what 'it' he referred to. Instead he put his faith in Jean and removed his broken visor.

He felt Jean's hands come around the side of his head from behind, felt her breath tickle his neck as she rose on tip-toe to reach his temples. He felt the psychic channel between them open wide and the warm tingle of Jean's telekinesis enveloped his head. He let Jean shift his stance and the direction he was facing, lining him up for the shot.

_Open your eyes, hon._

Scott opened his eyes; he had a brief second to see the collapsed building, Alex and Lorna, on one side of the piles of cleared debris and his team on the other, and then his power was loosed and he was blasting a hole straight down into the bowels of the shattered complex.

'Way to go, Cyke; we're in!' Bobby's congratulations were over-layed by Ororo's shout of warning.

'Goddess preserve us; look above us!'

Only Jean's hands kept Scott from jerking his head up to look with the others, but he felt her ripple of fear as she saw whatever it was that had alarmed Ororo so much.

'Shit,' he heard Alex suck in a breath close to his side, 'I know what those are….'

There was a noise like a swarm of bees, a whine like a pneumatic drill and then the earth quaked close by with the impact of something pounding into the ground. A moment later there was the squeal of tearing metal and he heard Lorna cry out.

'Sentinels!' Warren shouted to be heard over the hail of laser fire, 'We've got Prime Sentinels in-coming!'

'Oh my god!' Jean sucked in a sharp breath and tightened her grip on the side of Scott's head, 'Open your eyes Scott; we have to thin their numbers or they're going to slaughter us!' His wife jerked his head up and sharply to the left; Scott opened his eyes and let his optic beams go unfettered.

The blue sky was filled with the gold flashes of laser cannonade and the gathering clouds of a terrific storm, courtesy of Ororo. Through the gathering tempest a swathe of sentinel's bore down on their position inexorably there laser fire coming before them and setting the grass of the field alight.

* * *

'Wolverine!'

Bishop's shout of warning jarred Gambit back to some semblance of consciousness. Before he had time to make sense of what Bishop had said something muscle-bound, and growling like buzz-saw, launched itself at Remy. Pain erupted all over again in his brain and body.

Ah oui, chaos was a cruel mistress and no mistake.

Remy snapped back to full, painful, awareness to find himself face to sharp point with a fistful of bone claws. He blinked, wondering what he'd missed and how he ended up flat on his back on the floor. Wolverine's gargoyle like visage wavered before his spotty vision.

'Yer got a lot of explainin' to do Gumbo.' Wolverine snarled at him, lips drawn back from blood soaked teeth. Flickers of his delirium dream danced before Remy's eyes as he stared up at Logan. No, not yet; he couldn't die yet. He hadn't reached the Garden yet!

'Wolverine; we must go.' Bishop attempted to pry the smaller man off Remy who was pinned to the ground by Wolverine's impressive body weight and couldn't even manage the slightest of struggles.

When he couldn't budge the other man, Bishop tried a different tact, 'Where are the rest of the X-men? Phoenix made contact earlier but I have heard nothing since.'

The rest of the X-men; Remy couldn't help a slight fission of unease at the mention of the rest of his former team and housemates. He didn't want to face them; he didn't want to see the hate and self-righteous sense of betrayal in their eyes. It didn't matter that he was sinner and damned for his crimes a man still had his pride. Facing the X-men now they knew everything would destroy something precious inside him, and no mistake.

Lord God what if Stormy was here? He was not ready to face her; he would _never_ be ready to face her now that she knew the truth of his betrayal – and surely Betsy had wasted no time telling the X-men all about the massacre.

Wolverine jerked his head to the side to look at Bishop, 'Dunno, outside maybe. I took care of Creed and came after yer; ain't heard a peep from Jeannie.'

Bishop frowned, 'That is not good; I would have expected them to be here by now. I told Phoenix that Sinister was here.'

Gambit, all but forgotten underneath Wolverine, bit his lip. He had a fair idea what might have distracted not just the X-men, but Lorna and Havok too. By his reckoning the Prime Sentinels should be on their way to the base. Surely one of the tin-soldiers would have called in the OZT cavalry by now, oui? Once the Sentinels caught a hint of his mutant signature they'd zone right in on him and blast their way through anyone, be they X-man or evil scientific genius, to get at him.

He had to get back up top side; he had to make sure the Sentinels did what he needed them to do.

A faint quiver of guilt ran through Remy at the thought of what he had loosed on the X-men but he shoved it aside; it was too damn late for remorse now. He'd dealt the hand, now it was time to play it through. More than that, it was a damn good hand to play; once the game was done he'd pay his dues in blood and shame aplenty – but the game weren't done yet.

Logan turned back to Remy at that moment suspicion in his blue eyes. 'Start talkin' Gumbo. I can smell the pain on yer; no way yer goin' t'run out on me or win a fight in your shape.'

Remy did not dare even blink as he stared up at Wolverine's claws. The two outer claws poked into the floor on either side of his neck and the third claw remained retracted inside Logan's forearm as an implicit threat. He could not let Wolverine kill him; not here and not now. When the game was done Logan could take his head if he wanted it, but right now Remy needed to live. He kept silent and concentrated; there was no choice he had to do what he had to do.

Remy could feel the rough edges of the bone claws scrape against his throat with every breath. He concentrated on the sensation; he might not be able to charge things just by looking at them thanks to Sinister's surgery but he didn't need to when any part of his body was a conductor for his power.

'I'm warnin' yer Cajun….' Wolverine did not get to finish his threat; the charge Remy had been very carefully feeding through the surface of the other man's claws where the ivory brushed against his throat ignited all at once. Wolverine did not have the time to so much as grunt in pain as the charge ran up the length of his claws and into the bones of his forearm. Remy kicked out as Wolverine reared back in surprise and knocked the man away from him.

The claws extended from Logan's hand exploded in a shower of blood.

Bishop was in motion as Wolverine fell back cradling the bloody mass that was once his hand against his chest like a wounded bear. Despite the pain Remy rolled head over end backwards to escape Bishop's lunge. He righted himself in a crouch and slammed his one good hand into the ground.

The line of charge that detonated the concrete under the steel plating in a rippling veldt of shimmering colour was not that powerful, but it did the trick. Bishop shielded his face from the shards of steel plating erupting from the floor, glowing white hot and ready to explode. Staggering to his Remy twisted dizzily on his heels and bolted down the corridor.

He had no idea where this particular hallway took him but so long as it was away from Wolverine, Bishop, or anyone else calling themselves X-man, he was happy. As he ran, coat tails glowing shimmering pink and shooting sparks as he ran, he reached out with his good hand to brush fingers over the concrete wall. The charge that loosed from his fingers cracked the walls and sent large chunks of mortar spitting out in all directions.

He could hear Wolverine gaining ground on him as he ran almost blindly.

Remy hit a corner at a flat out run; his feet slipped out from under him and he skidded feet first into the opposing wall, crashing down hard on his hip. Still he had no time to even curse at this new blast of pain; he had to get up and start running before Wolverine caught him. He scrabbled to his feet and instantly ducked low again, ducking his head and throwing his arms up. Wolverine sailed over him like a bouncing tiger.

Remy kicked backwards trying to shimmy around the corner and back track. Wolverine's arm shot out and his large hand caught his ankle.

'Yer ain't goin' anywhere boy.'

He yanked hard and Remy was slithering across the steel towards the one remaining full length claw on Wolverine's right hand and the two jagged broken and scorched bone shards that remained from Remy's earlier little experiment.

Remy winced; this was going to smart.

Swinging with one fist and the other flailing hand Remy slammed both hands up into Wolverine's chest, kicking with his free leg at the same time. He let the charge in his palms run wild through Logan's skin and twisted equally wildly until he managed to kick his way free of the grip Wolverine had on his ankle. The charge failed to detonate throughout Wolverine's body, and in retrospect Remy would be glad of that, but at that particularly moment he just wanted to get the hell away from the other man, and if he had to blow him to kingdom come to do it, so be it.

'Lebeau!' Bishop rounded the corner, raised his fist and fired. Remy ducked the wide arced blast meant to slow him down and not kill him. He had no time to wonder why the X-men were being so merciful; surely the architect of the Morlock massacre deserved no quarter? Instead he scrambled on hands and knees along the floor before stumbling to his feet. He starting running again with both X-men hot on his heels. The only thought in his head was a simple one:

Where the fuck was Creed when he was needed?


	24. Chapter 24

_A/N: Hello everyone; I just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who reads this story and leaves reviews. This story has been incredibly well received and I am flattered and immensely grateful to everyone for all the kind words, the enthusiasm, and the insightful things you have written. Every review I receive is a wonderful gift. _

_I would also like to say special thank you to Loganson; if you are reading this I would like to say that your comments about chpt 23 were very, very interesting. I found myself agreeing with you on some parts, particularly about XM 45; it was a cowardly thing Remy did refusing to explain himself and trying to emotionally blackmail Rogue into absorbing him again, although perhaps a very human thing to do when faced with his own worst fears. I won't pretend to be anything but a Remy fangirl but I, personally, don't hate Rogue; I'm sorry if it comes across that way as I'm not trying to make Rogue out to the be the villain of the piece. All I can say about the Remy shade is that he is the darker, harder, angrier side of Remy's personality –– therefore he is going to be far harsher on Rogue than on himself. _

_Still I will stress that although this story is not a ROMY romance it is NOT anti-Rogue either. _

_Phew, sorry everyone but I thought it was about time I stepped into the breach and explained my Rogue/Gambit feelings before anyone got hurt! ;)_

**Chapter Twenty-three: Misassumption**

The stairs proved his downfall – literally.

Remy had managed a reasonable lead on the two X-men pursuing him; he was faster than Bishop any day of the week, and Wolverine was hampered by his close encounter of the explosive kind. Still when he reached the set of concrete stairs that wound up to the upper floors of the complex Remy's dubious luck failed him completely.

He miscalculated and tripped on the steps, falling hard because he could only use one hand to try and stop his fall. He crashed down face first into the concrete rim of one of the steps, coming close to knocking himself stupid in the process. He tried to pick himself up, instinct moving his limbs while his brain flailed helplessly, but it did no good.

A small, snarling, lividly angry Canadian landed on his back, grabbed a fistful of his hair and wrenched his head back hard enough to induce whiplash. One nasty bone claw pressed against his Adam's apple.

'Just give me one excuse Gumbo.' Wolverine growled in his ear, rubbing the length ways edge of the claw against his throat almost caressingly, 'Just one.'

Remy felt it when a thin, shallow stream of blood trickled down his throat from the cut of Wolverine's claw. This was by no definition of the word a good situation to be in; having a Wolverine sit on him wasn't much fun either.

Remy closed his eyes and gave in; a warrior might fight to the death, but a thief knew how to pick the battles he could win and concede the field when he couldn't.

'D'accord, Logan….you win homme.' He whispered and then said no more; settling in to wait for his moment to escape.

* * *

'Havok, behind you!'

Ororo struck out with a bolt of lightning even as she gave her warning; hovering high above the ground gave her a better view of what had fast become a battleground outside the complex.

There was ice and fire everywhere; rain and sleet lashed the field, damp smoke rose to form an unnatural mist, and through that smog flashes of laser fire and the ruby red of Cyclops' optic beams cast lurid shadows and created strange phantasms.

Ororo waited long enough to see through the haze that Havok had obliterated the electrified Prime Sentinel with a plasma blast before turning back to the rest of the battle.

'Goddess!'

She twisted and rolled in mid-air to avoid one of the airborne Sentinel's charging at her. The heaven's opened and another bolt of lightning scored down. The Sentinel fell to the ground like Icarus. Ororo did not bother to watch it's descent; rising to high altitude she summoned monsoon winds and rain to batter down upon the land, putting out the fires from the laser fire bombardment and hopefully helping to inhibit the sensors in the Prime's central processing units with electric static.

From above the sounds of battle below were thankfully muted; it sounded like fireworks and, strangely to Ororo's ears, like the crash of ten pins in a bowling alley. Gesturing like a composer leading an orchestra Ororo summoned gentler winds to dissipate the thick smoke so that her comrades would be able to see.

With Cyclops impaired by his broken visor and dependent on Jean acting as his eyes, the X-men were effectively fighting at half capacity. They were missing Wolverine and Bishop completely, and Jean's attention was focused primarily on Scott so her effectiveness as a combatant was greatly reduced. The addition of Polaris and Havok, who despite their earlier actions behaved like X-men still in battle, evened the odds somewhat.

Still this was a fight they were ill-prepared for and Ororo could not help but wonder if perhaps this was the true ambush, after all, and not Polaris and Havok's attack?

Suddenly she caught a glimpse of something in her peripheral vision and was in motion before she could really think about it; instinct ingrained from a life time of surviving coming to her rescue where simple thought would not. Ororo summoned her lightning to her and headed for even high altitude, commanding clouds to form around her like a wispy shield.

Still when the attack came she was caught by surprise. Something huge and metallic, curling and wavering like the leg of a sea anemone, punctured the depths of her cloud barrier, catching the reflected light of her palmed lightning like quicksilver. The massive metallic limb swept away a Prime Sentinel that had intended to ensnare Ororo, snapping the being's spine as it slapped the Sentinel down to earth with a certain, almost organic, elegance.

'Watch yourself Storm.' Polaris hovered in the air a few feet away, her magnetic shield snapping brilliant green in the turbulent sky. Ororo nodded to the woman who, less than two hours previously, had ambushed them in the Blackbird and fought Storm in these very skies.

'I thank you for your assistance, Polaris.'

Without waiting for reply Ororo turned and dove down on her guiding winds towards the battlefield. Impatiently she gestured and sent a concentrated gust of wind to sweep over the field towards a trio of Sentinel's Iceman had managed to subdue temporarily under a thick hillock of solid ice. She shattered the ice with a lightning bolt and her gale sent the bits and pieces of ice and Sentinel flying into another pair of Sentinels firing on Jean and Scott's position.

'Goddess is there no end to them?' She asked aloud as more Sentinel's rose into the air to launch a combined assault on Lorna's metallic tree; huge chunks of metal tore free of the construct in flames to rain down upon the X-men fighting below.

Down below more fires broke out; the whole field resembling a frieze from a madman's view of Hell come to Earth. Floating like a true deity above it all, trying to work out where her assistance was most needed (or more accurately where her help was least needed) Ororo could not shake the suspicion that someone had orchestrated this attack from the beginning.

What scared her most was she was fairly sure she could guess who might have planned all this.

Ororo then made the near fatal mistake of wondering what else could go wrong. It was at that moment that another explosion rocked the devastated complex; a flair of unfamiliar energy enveloping the concrete before it shattered outward in all directions.

A figure emerged from the debris and Ororo felt her blood run entirely cold. She could only watch for a second as that figure, ignored in the chaos of the battle by all except Ororo, made his way directly, unhindered by the choking black smoke from the fires, towards Phoenix and Cyclops, whose backs were to him.

'Sweet Goddess – _No!' _

Ororo was in motion, diving down towards her teammates, before the words had completely left her lips.

* * *

Wolverine could smell blood and pain and sickness rising from the Cajun's shivering body like a heat haze. Gumbo was dead weight in his arms, not offering any resistance but not co-operating either. His eyes were closed but Logan knew he wasn't unconscious.

The ancient warrior shook his head to clear it; Bishop had gone to scout ahead for any ambush that might be waiting for them, which left Wolverine alone with Gumbo. Logan was just fine with that; he needed to have some _'words'_ with Gambit and Bishop would only get in the way.

'So tell me,' he began in growling voice, 'this the score yer wanted to settle, Cajun; or yer just decide to fuck with the government for a laugh?'

He shook the taller, thinner body in his arms for emphasis but Gumbo didn't react and didn't say a word. Logan's hand was almost healed, his fingers regenerating faster than his claws would; didn't mean Logan wasn't pissed about it though, having his hand nearly blown straight off _hurt_. For that reason he grabbed hold of Gambit's obviously broken wrist and squeezed down on the narrow nub of bone – hard.

'Wakey-wakey, Lebeau,' Wolverine smiled savagely; he did not have a lot of patience at the moment and he was determined to find out what the Cajun thought he was playing at here. Logan didn't like traitors and right this minute that's what Gumbo looked like. He was hoping he was wrong there, if not it wouldn't go too well for Gambit now he'd caught up to him.

Red on black eyes snapped open and a brilliant, pungent spear of pain ran through the quaking body in his arms as Logan continued to bear down on the broken bone. It took a moment for those eyes to focus on him, Gumbo was hurting bad already, but when they did he saw and could smell something heated, yet cold - a strain of defiance that was way more than Gumbo's usual brand of cockiness.

Oh yeah, Gambit was pissed now.

'Fuck you,' the Cajun bared his teeth and tried to tear his wrist free of Logan's large hand. Any other time Logan would have laughed; Gumbo was barely able to keep his eyes open let alone break free, but something in those eyes, pupils constricted to pinpricks and irises glowing like embers, set the hackles rising at the nape of Logan's neck. Whoever was glaring up at him wasn't the Gumbo Logan knew.

Releasing the damaged wrist Logan extended the one good claw and two broken claws of his nearly healed hand; he pointed them directly at those burning eyes. Gambit didn't even blink; his features contorting into a mask of wild rage, still hurting from Logan's grip on his broken wrist.

'Go 'head an' do it, homme,' he hissed venomously, 'tired o' lookin' at your claws all de time, me,' a cruel vindictively smile that said he didn't care if Wolverine carried out his threat or not, 'You an' Creed bot' de same; one trick ponies, the pair o' you.'

Logan ignored the insult and transparent attempt to provoke him to anger; he wasn't the only one who relied on old tricks after all. Gumbo had perfected the art of distraction through anger with Rogue long ago and Logan wasn't about to make her mistakes.

'Nice try, but I ain't buyin'.' He shifted and shoved the Cajun up against the wall by the stairs he'd earlier dragged him down. Gambit didn't resist and Logan suspected he couldn't; Cajun was hurting real bad and Wolverine suspected the cuts and breaks he could see were only the tip of the iceberg.

'Now I'm thinking,' he rumbled into Gumbo's closed and defiant face, 'we need to have us a little talk, _boy_; just the two of us.'

Gambit's lip twitched in a silent snarl at the mocking use of the word 'boy' but he said nothing; the effort to bite back his smart-ass instinct obviously cost him. Once again he closed his eyes and once again Logan jabbed the point of his middle claw against the closed eyelid of Gumbo's right eye.

It was the faintest of contacts but he felt it through the sensitive length of bone as Lebeau grew instantly tense. Defiance was one thing but the Cajun wasn't quite stupid enough to push him too far. Logan had always had a healthy respect for Gumbo's physical bravery and knew the Cajun could take a beating with a laugh on his lips but a scrapper like Gambit knew when to throw in the towel.

If Gumbo lost an eye it would be crippling; he'd lose his livelihood as a thief and his lack of depth perception would severely impede his acrobatic skills. He could almost smell it as Gambit came to the same realisation; this time when his muscles relaxed and he slumped back against the wall he knew the Cajun really had surrendered.

'I'll do it, Gumbo, yer know I will,' Logan said softly being careful to keep his hand perfectly still and steady as he held the claw against his closed eye, 'Don't make me hurt yer, Gambit.'

To his surprise the Cajun actually started at that, violently enough that Logan had to jerk his arm away before he accidentally carried out the threat he'd been making and popped out Gumbo's eye.

Gambit opened both his eyes and what Logan saw wasn't mad fury or even fear; instead there was cool surprise as if Logan had said something Gambit had not been expecting. Logan frowned the person looking back at him so analytically wasn't the Gumbo he knew. Then he laughed, bright and harsh. The laugh ended in a shuddered wince of pain.

'Fuckin' hypocrite,' Gambit looked at him cool and inscrutable and completely at odds with the fury in his voice. 'I ain't doin' not'ing to _make _you do anyt'ing homme; you want to kill me have de balls to admit it.' His face twisted once again, infused with rage underneath the blood, sweat and grime covering him.

Logan shook his head again, slowly, sadly, not sure what was running through the other man's head but knowing from his scent that the Cajun really did think Logan had come here to kill him.

'This ain't the time for grandstanding Gumbo; you got some explainin' to do an' I want answers.' He looked hard at the younger man, 'Yer can start with tellin' me what yer playin' at here.'

Gambit said nothing and turned his head away, an abstracted, strangely thoughtful frown on his face. Thoughtful wasn't a term often associated with the Cajun; sure he wasn't dumb but he wasn't exactly the meditative, think things through type either. Something was obviously off here.

Logan grabbed Gambit's bloody throat and jerked his head around. 'That ain't nice Cajun; I weren't done talkin' to yer.'

He could feel Gambit's pulse racing against the palm of his hand as he cupped the other man's throat. There was a persistent tingle where his flesh met Lebeau's, and Logan kept his senses primed for any change in Gumbo's scent that might mean he was going to try and use his powers again. Gambit was still frowning at him, and it really did seem like was confused about something.

'What game you playin' here, homme? If'n de X-men sent you to condemn me an' end my sorry life den jus' do it.' Gambit frowned harder; he seemed to be trying to figure something out even as he threw angry words at Logan. 'Thought you were supposed to have honour, homme; dere ain't no honour in draggin' out an execution.'

Logan quirked an eyebrow; what the hell was Gambit talking about? 'Condemn yer?'

Gambit glared at him; his scent was a riot of mixed emotion. On the one hand he was hostile, on the other there was a muddle of total confusion, and underneath that there was a strain of deep held sorrow Logan recognised all too well; Gumbo had been reeking sadness for months. The anger on the surface sat like oil scum over the top of that hidden welter of hostility and remorse.

'Don play wit' me homme, you ain't got de sense o' style for head games.' Gumbo was almost growling under his breath and his shaking increased in intensity. Logan had to reach out a steadying hand to keep him upright and Gambit instantly tried to twist out of that hold in a sudden burst of rage. He spat the next words straight into Wolverine's face.

'You go on an' kill me, homme, not like I can stop you now anyhow.' Gambit stopped his struggles and jerked his wounded hand in emphasis. 'But I ain't gon make it easy for you.'

Red on black eyes blazed in the cradle of a tired, filthy, bedraggled skull. Something changed in Gambit even as Logan held him pinned; rage catalysed and resentment held deep, deep down fermented and bubbled up to the surface. Contempt dripped from Gambit's voice, cold and acidic.

'Feh, I don' even care what dat bitch Psylocke say to y'all; to t'ink I used to believe de X-men could save me,' he laughed, 'what a fool I be, eh?'

Logan was caught by surprise by the almost mesmerising nonsensical outburst and the searing wave of conviction and determination that poured from the Cajun's scent, and for that reason Gambit was able to wriggle free jarring an elbow into Logan's chin as he did so.

The Cajun lurched in uncoordinated fashion to his feet but Logan, cursing more at his own stupidity for getting caught by another of the Cajun's old tricks, grabbed him by the tail of his tattered coat and hauled him back down before he could get more than foot towards the stairs.

Gambit landed unceremoniously in Logan's lap, hissing and spitting curses like an angry alley-cat. Wolverine instantly locked his arms around the Cajun's torso; he held on while Gambit wildly bucked and twisted to get free.

'Fight all yer want, only goin' to hurt yerself, an' I ain't goin' to let yer go.' Wolverine said reasonably and eventually Gambit gave up, wheezing in pain and struggling for breath. The stench of impotent rage and pain made it difficult for Logan to breathe and a growl bubbled up deep inside his chest; the wild thing within snarling with sympathy for another cornered creature.

When he looked back down Gambit was watching him from his lap, forced to roll his eyes up in his head to do so, as he remained pinned against Logan's barrel chest.

'Let go o' me, homme.' The Cajun didn't plead and he couldn't demand but he sounded calmer now; a veneer of brittle control snapping into place, 'I ain't got no answers for you, or anyone.' He insisted in a deliberately level voice. 'Won't make excuses for what I done, but I ain't gon' beg y'all for forgiveness either; you want to play my executioners, dat your prerogative but don' expect me to agree wit' it, d'accord?'

Logan shook his head, 'Gumbo I ain't got a fuckin' clue what yer talkin' about; the team didn't come here to kill yer. Or yer forgotten X-men don't kill, an' we sure as hell don't kill our own.'

Gambit stared at him cold and disbelieving, 'I ain't never been one o' you.' The bitterness in his voice was heavy with regret, 'You know what I done; _you know_!' he curled his lip, 'Never figured you for playin' these types of games homme.' He muttered as an aside turning his head away.

'Wolverine?'

Bishop stood at the top of the stairs above them, his voice lilting with unease and question. Logan growled knowing he'd lost his chance to get anything sensible out of the Cajun without an interfering audience. Shaking his head roughly he hauled the limp body up with him and pushed him towards the stairs.

'Get up Gumbo; don't know what's up with yer but yer comin' with me.'

He shoved and herded Gambit up the stairs, all the while feeling like a man marching a prisoner to his execution.

* * *

'Cyclops – Phoenix: behind you!'

Ororo hurtled down from the sky, lightning coruscating around her body, hair whipping like a pennant in the wind. Jean heard her cry made both aloud and telepathically and jerked her head around her hands still clasping Scott's head. Instantly she erected a large telekinetic bubble around herself and Cyclops as she saw her danger; her telepathic cry of surprise echoed like a call to arms to the rest of the X-men.

Warren swept forward to land beside the bubble, opening his wings as further shelter, as Ororo directed her winds at the figure standing before Cyclops and Phoenix. As her winds struck the burnt grasses of the field, picking up the debris of the battle and battering against Warren's wings, forcing him to lean into the wind or be blown away as well, the figure at the centre of the maelstrom merely turned around and looked up at her.

In the strobing darkness and searing brilliance of the thunderstorm, Mr Sinister's waxy face and cold burning diamond seemed to glow. The odious creature did not react at all as the force of her gales sliced into his body; his flesh simply rippled like liquid rubber and reformed until the winds relented.

A row of jagged teeth flashed in the thick lipped, bloodless face, 'This is pointless.' Sinister raised a hand and blasted one of the all but forgotten Prime Sentinels that had followed Ororo's downward arc from the sky in pursuit.

The Prime Sentinel exploded into bloody chunks, larger parts of the body smashing into its comrades and knocking them from the sky. Ororo hesitated as she realised that Mr Sinister had just saver her life. She could see the same surprise paint over Jean's and Warren's faces. She alighted onto the ground, wary and cautious.

Mr Sinister swept his cold eyes over the fight still going on between Iceman, Havok, Polaris and the remaining Sentinels. 'Children,' He sneered raising a hand and releasing another blast which took off the head of one of the nearest Sentinels.

'What are you doing?' Cyclops voiced the question on all their lips.

Sinister flicked his cold eyes towards Phoenix and Cyclops.

'Your continued existence is of paramount importance to me, Scott Summers. I will eliminate any threat to you that I must.' The diamond on his forehead flashed with cold fire, 'As Lebeau well knows – he has jeopardised all your lives for his own freedom.'

* * *

'The Garden?' Hank McCoy pulled his spectacles from his eyes and scrubbed at them with the sleeve of his lab coat, 'Threnody, my dear, I'm not sure I completely…'

His patient shifted under the cover of the psi-dampener, 'Dr McCoy, you must listen to me; I know what Gambit plans. I know the secret of the Marauders.'

Hank put his glasses into his pocket, 'You have my full attention my dear.'

Threnody nodded and did not waste breath on preamble, 'Darwin was a botanist, Dr McCoy; it was the plants he studied that gave that learned man the key to evolution. From the primordial swamp to the Promised Land; that was what Mr Sinister used to say.'

Hank did not have eyebrows as such but his eyes squinted in a frown of thought, 'I know that Nathaniel Essex, the human man that Mr Sinister used to be was greatly influenced by Charles Darwin but…..'

Threnody shook her head fiercely interrupted him in her passion, 'No, Hank, do not seek to understand, only listen: the Black Womb is the key. The X-men must go to Almogordo New Mexico: Sinister has called the Serpent home……the Garden is _wilting_ and that will not be good for any mutant.'

Hank shook his large, proud head as he tried to make sense of this, 'My dear I fear I am missing some vital contextual information to help me comprehend this revelation. What is this Garden?'

Threnody's eyes were impossibly dark as she stared beseechingly into Hank's from underneath the shimmering, quicksilver quilt of the dampener, '_Everything_, Dr McCoy, it is everything. The beating heart of mutant kind within the tree of knowledge beats and the _Serpent is going home_.'

In her agitation Threnody rose on her knees on the bed and fisted the dampening cloth in both her hands. Tears stood to attention in her large, panicked eyes. 'Please, Dr McCoy, you must go to Almogordo; you cannot let Gambit destroy the Garden!'

* * *

'Get up Gumbo.' Wolverine nudged the Cajun with his foot. The younger man had managed to wriggle out of both X-men's grip and only to slump exhausted on the floor, refusing to move. The trio had another level to go before they were out of the complex and up until now the Cajun had seemed resigned to going back with them.

'Not dat easy homme,' Gambit looked up and Logan did not like the smile that decorated his pallid face, 'I've not had de best o' days, oui? Petite bit tired me.'

Bishop and Wolverine exchanged a look, 'This stalling is beneath you, Gambit, stand up and act your age.' Bishop nudged the other man's shoulder with the barrel of another plasma rifle he had looted from an armoury store cupboard along the way.

'Tsk,' Gambit rolled his eyes much calmer now, 'Next you gon be tellin' me to act my shoe size.'

Rather roughly both Logan and Bishop hauled Gambit back up to his feet. The man didn't complain but instead looked rather slyly between the pair. He had clearly affected one of his mercurial, instantaneous changes of mood. It was enough to make Logan dizzy; would it kill Gumbo to pick a mood and stick with it?

'So tell me mes amis, you so eager to string dis Cajun up dat you not int'rested in gatherin' any evidence, eh?' Gambit continued to prattle nonsense, 'Do you really t'ink leavin' de Bête Noir down in de basement a good idea?'

Bishop's face creased in confusion, 'The Dark Beast?' He looked to Logan, 'I did not see him when I found Lebeau with Sinister.'

A derisive snort from between the two X-men, 'It ain't nice to talk over a body like dat body ain't here, pup.'

Gambit rolled his eyes again; his mood seeming _much_ better than it had earlier even if he was still talking garbage, at least as far as Logan was concerned. Whatever was up with Lebeau, it seemed to have addled his wits more than usual and Wolverine had to resist the desire to shake him hard. There were few things more irritating than Gambit in a deliberately cryptic mood.

Still smiling brightly Gambit flicked his gaze to Logan before settling on Bishop. 'You din't see him pup because he be under all dat rubble in de hallway,' the Cajun shrugged as best he could when pinched between the two X-men, 'Figured takin' out de corridor de best way o' distractin' Essex from de homme, oui?'

Logan was watching Gambit levelly, 'Why should we care about that imposter?' he asked carefully. Something in Gambit's scent was worrying him. The Cajun wasn't just talking crazy; he was playing out a scam. It occurred to Logan that Gumbo had probably been playing him all along – Gambit would say and do whatever he had to, to get his way.

Gambit beamed at him, mad as a March fare, 'He ain't an imposter; he jus' not de same Henri we know…….t'ing of it is, though, dat dis Henri know a lot 'bout Essex…he wouldn' talk to me, but he mebbe talk to you, eh?'

'Essex…..yer mean Sinister?' Wolverine asked sharply as at the same moment Bishop demanded: 'Lebeau, what game are you playing?'

Bishop was uneasy, Logan was just suspicious. Gumbo turned back to Bishop still grinning maniacally.

'De game I always play, pup; de same game I been playin' all my life.'

To Logan's surprise Bishop seemed to become instantly more relaxed and he shifted so he could look into the other man's feverish eyes head on, 'The hand you were dealt; is that what you are playing?'

Bishop glanced briefly at Logan almost self-consciously before moving to stand almost in front of the Cajun and forcing to Wolverine to take most of the taller man's weight. He placed one hand, almost gently, on Gambit's shoulder and continued in the same steady tone of voice, addressing himself directly to Gumbo as if Logan was not there.

'The man who raised me as a child, the man many knew as the Witness but who called himself Lebeau, he would tell me that an average man sought to win with the hand he was dealt, as he could not play another.'

Gambit's smile softened and he nodded, seeming pleased to be understood. Logan wondered if Gambit was even truly aware of his surroundings of if he was completely delirious; hell, whatever it was must be catching because Bishop wasn't making that much sense either.

The imposing X-man continued to talk in that same commanding, yet oddly patient manner. It was a voice to use with small children or befuddled old men. Logan wondered if that observation was significant giving Bishop's odd 'history' with a future Gambit.

'The Witness would also tell me that true power came not in playing the hand but in dealing the cards. He had made himself a master of that art by the time he rescued my sister and I.' Bishop lightly squeezed down on the other man's shoulder, 'Tell me Gambit, tell me _mon ami_, what hand have you dealt us today?'

Logan's frown deepened, the French phrase tripped off Bishop's tongue as easily as if he was a native speaker; did Bishop speak French…..had an older Gambit taught him?

Looking at Bishop now Logan wondered how he could have missed it before; the time lost X-man's attitude towards the Cajun had always been oddly familial, as if it was Bishop's personal responsibility to keep Gambit in line and hold him to a standard no one else expected him to uphold. Watching the two now, seeing the depth of insight Bishop truly had into Gambit's character, Logan realised he'd been a fool to believe he could get more from the Cajun than Bishop.

'Should I go and retrieve the Dark Beast, mon ami; or should I expect betrayal? Have you given up already? Have you decided to be the traitor you raised me to believe you always were?'

Gambit seemed a little confused again as if he was only now recognising the strangeness of the moment. He shook his head in befuddlement and frowned at Bishop's hand on his shoulder and the gesture of affection it obviously was.

'Go get de Bête noir, homme, you gon need him.' Gambit looked up tiredly, 'Ain't gon tell you no'ting, me, won't never tell, no matter what games you be playin', but de Bête, he be able to tell you what de X-men need to know,' a despondent shrug, 'mebbe.'

Bishop nodded, 'Very well, mon ami, I will believe you.' He looked straight into Gambit's eyes, 'I will trust you now as I never did then. I will believe that you raised me to be the man I am today for a reason – and I will have faith that reason was a good one; just as I shall believe that what you do now is for the X-men's good.'

Gambit seemed more than a trifle surprised by this, just as Logan was, and he laughed somewhat bitterly, 'You either stupid, pup, or you t'ink I am; no way you trust me now dat you know de truth. He looked hard at Bishop, 'Not like you ever really did to begin wit'.'

Bishop nodded his usually grim expression shaded with sympathy. 'Finally I think I understand the Witness; it must be lonely indeed to see betrayal in the face of every friend and comrade.'

He turned without a word and walked away down the corridor towards the stairs back down to the lowest level of the complex. Gambit paused for a moment his scent conflicted then with reluctance, he called after the large man.

'Mon ami, pup, you watch for m'sieur Tooth, t'ink he screwed me over – but he might be waitin' down dere for a stray X-man!'

Bishop turned and nodded once at the end of the corridor before he turned and vanished out of sight. Wolverine and Gambit stared at one another in mutual incomprehension for a second.

Gambit broke the silence finally cocking his head to the side quizzically, 'You bein' tres, tres kind to a traitor like me, homme. Beginnin' to t'ink somet'ing gone wrong wit' my reasonin', non? You ain't actin' like I thought you would, especially now you know what I done.'

'What the hell are you babbling about, Gumbo?' Logan asked at the same time that the Cajun's eyes grew almost comically wide. An explosion of shock and adrenaline flared from Gumbo as he grew almost impossibly paler.

'Sacre dieu, you don' know!' he exclaimed in a harsh hiss of air, almost choked with disbelief. 'Lord have mercy…..dat's what's wrong; you don know 'bout de tunnels…..de X-men still don' know!'

Gambit jerked away from Logan, wavered but caught his balance instantly, swaying on his feet but not trying to escape.

'Mon dieu, dis can' be.' He scraped his hands through his blood and dust coated hair, 'You were s'posed to _know_ by now – how can you not know - dis don' make sense.'

Logan moved forward to grab for the Cajun who looked like he was getting ready to bolt again and was therefore completely confused when Gambit grabbed hold of him.

'C'mon Logan, we got to get outside,' the Cajun said in earnest and tugged with his one good hand at Logan's arm turning to stumble up the final flight of stairs leading to the outside, 'Mon dieu, why de hell don' you know? I finally decide to quit hidin' an' face my past an' de X-men won' catch a clue when I 'and it to you; shit dis gon change ev'ryt'ing.'

Gambit half crawled up the stairs still rambling on, suddenly enthused with an energy and purpose that left Wolverine completely baffled. As he followed the Cajun up the stairs Logan could only turn over and over in his mind what Gambit had said.

'_You don know 'bout de tunnels…..de X-men still don' know.'_


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter Twenty-four: Corruption**

_A/N: Hello again Loganson, nice to hear from you once more. Still if I could just make one comment if I may? The Remy shade is Gambit's past made 'flesh' he even said as much. This is the man Gambit has admitted, numerous times, to being ashamed of; the man who was a con-artist and a thief. He is __pre-Rogue,__ so his attitude is less a reflection of his feelings __for her__ than it is the anguish, bitterness, and destructiveness of his past. He is not angry at Rogue per se but at the world, and angry people lash out blindly; the real Gambit matured and realised the mistake of his behaviour, but that anger was still inside him, now sadly, it is also inside Rogue. Perhaps Rogue kept that side of him because she too is a very angry, damaged person and was drawn to those feelings more than love, which she has little experience of? Ultimately, the tragedy of the Rogue/Gambit kiss was that Remy did/does love Rogue but that for whatever reason she only absorbed the worst of him and not the best._

_Ahem, apologies everyone, now on with the action……_

* * *

Sabretooth watched as Sinister waded in to take down the remaining wave of Sentinels right alongside Xavier's brats; he wondered what the X-men would say if they could see themselves fighting side by side with a 'hated enemy'. Creed's lip curled, bunch of hypocrites the lot of them.

Crouched in the shelter of a large pile of rubble dug out from the shattered Beta-Star complex, Sabretooth was unmolested by X-man or Sentinel. The nature of his mutation being physical rather than energy based meant that unless he leapt out in front of one of the Prime's they would not notice him in the melee.

Creed had had his doubts when the punk had told him that, but it turned out the Cajun had done his homework after all. Shit Creed should have figured that, it was only since he'd tagged on with Xavier's gang that Lebeau had started to act like he couldn't think his way out of a paper bag; when'd they'd been with Sinister the punk used to know his stuff pretty good.

A Prime Sentinel crashed into the scorched and pock marked wall not far to Creed's right. The sentinel's body was a wreck; one side of its torso had been charbroiled by Havok's plasma blast and its remaining arm and leg were encased in ice. Still the head was in tact and the Prime was still just about active.

Perfect; Creed grinned broadly and flexed his claws as he nimbly leapt from his perch upon the rubble and pounced on the helpless Sentinel. The Sentinel turned its computerised eyes towards him and Creed's lips settled into a self-satisfied smirk.

'Peek-a-boo,' Creed's claws flashed down towards the Sentinel's human fragile neck, 'I see you.'

* * *

The last Sentinel fell under the combined might of the X-men, Havok, Polaris, and most unsettling of all Mr Sinister; in the dust and stilted silence of the aftermath the X-men stood loosely grouped together and united in their distrust of their unlikely 'ally'. Mr Sinister remained as impassive and unmoved as a mountain under the hostility of their combined gaze.

For the longest time, as the dust settled and the last of the fires had been quenched by Storm's light rain, silence reigned upon the former battlefield. Sinister stood on one side of an invisible dividing line and the X-men stood on the other.

It was Cyclops who spoke up in the end, still blind but now able to use the filter of his rapport with Jean to look through her eyes.

'What did you mean, Gambit had jeopardised our lives for his freedom?' Cyclops demanded recalling Sinister's comment when he had first materialised behind he and Jean.

Sinister smiled and looked pointed down at his booted feet, one of which rested on the horribly burned skull of a fallen Sentinel. With casual indifference he pushed down with his boot and shattered the brittle dome of bone under his boot. More than one of the gathered mutants winced at such a chilling reminder of Sinister's complete lack of compassion.

'Is it not obvious, Scott?' The ingratiating tone of Sinister's address made Cyclops' blood boil but he clenched his jaw and swallowed down his reaction as best he could. He had learned from bitter experience that lashing out at Sinister unthinkingly, while incredibly tempting, was never usually a good idea.

'Spell it out for me, Sinister; it's been a long day,' he snapped through gritted teeth.

Sinister inclined his head mockingly obliging, 'Very well, dear boy.'

He paused and casually glanced around to take in the rest of the assembled mutants before he continued, 'Lebeau, as I'm sure you are now aware, is of value to me. I have observed him for almost as long as I have watched you and Jean.'

Sinister nodded his head almost in deference to Jean who glared silently back at him, holding firm to Scott's arm. Sinister's smile quirked a little wider for just a moment before he continued in mild tones, as if explaining rudimentary facts to the mentally impaired.

'It is not in my interest to see harm come to him, however Lebeau does not possess the same value that you do Scott.' An ingratiating smile and Scott found himself wishing Jean would break the link between them so he wouldn't have to see it. 'Thus his life is of intrinsically less value to me than yours; a fact he is well aware of, if his recent actions are any indication.'

Scott was not the only one who was left confused by this. 'Explain,' he commanded tersely at the same time that Bobby leaned into Warren and stage whispered, 'Geez, could the guy be any _more_ vague?'

Sinister's smile grew broader, which didn't make anyone happy. 'Perhaps it would be best if Ms Dane took over the narrative? She is a co-conspirator in this little game of rebellion, after all.' Sinister nodded almost amicably to Lorna who bridled and clenched her fists.

'Bastard,' she hissed and then defiantly raised her chin to address the X-men. Her voice almost snapped with imperious refusal to be guilty about what she had done.

'You were a bait and switch Scott. Gambit knew if he made it seem like you were in danger Sinister would crawl out of his hole and come rescue his precious Summers Genome.' She shot a glare at the benignly smiling mad scientist in question before continuing a little more calmly.

'Gambit blew up the FoH HQ in St Louis to attract the attention of O:ZT; don't ask me why, he wouldn't tell me. He also said to make sure that Havok and I took out the Blackbird when you arrived here; he wanted to make sure the X-men were stranded. I don't know if he knew that the Prime Sentinels would come to defend Beta-Star but I'm guessing he must have.'

Lorna paused and shrugged, 'All I know is he wanted a confrontation between the X-men, him, and Sinister. I didn't ask too many questions because frankly even when he answered them I couldn't make sense of it.' A wry smile hinting affection briefly touched her face, 'Whatever deck that man is playing with it's not completely sane.'

'Now that, my dear Ms Dane, is a certain fact.' Sinister interrupted and more than one X-man glanced at him askance for a long moment. Sinister sounded almost indulgent, like a faintly exasperated but basically proud father; the observation made Scott feel physically ill.

Trying to ignore Sinister as much as humanly possible he struggled to absorb Lorna's words but in the end he filed them away for further reckoning. It was still hard for Scott to equate long term planning with the Gambit he knew, let alone the sort of deviousness that would allow the other man to manipulate a master of the art like Sinister.

'So what your saying,' he addressed Sinister, 'is that Gambit played us all?'

Instead of being outraged or horrified by this fact, however, Scott only felt vaguely affronted. Why had Gambit waited until he had clearly gone stark raving insane before demonstrating this level of tactical thinking? God damn it if Scott had known earlier what Gambit was capable of he could have put the other man to better use for the good of the team long ago. No one knew as well as Scott, after all, that the X-men badly needed another tactician of worth since the Professor's departure.

Sinister was watching him with the keenness of a scalpel, 'Playing? Yes, that is an apt description.' Sinister's lips curled again as if in some private joke. 'Lebeau is fulfilling his purpose, if perhaps not as I would have commanded.'

Ororo's solemn but clear voice interposed before Scott could think of anything to say, 'If that is so and Remy orchestrated this situation, where is he now? If a face to face confrontation was his ends, why is he the only one absent?'

There was an expectant silence as the X-men looked to Sinister to fill it, and the mad scientist looked a trifle displeased remaining obstinately silent; Scott took some comfort from the fact that even Sinister didn't understand Gambit any more than the rest of them. The crushing silence threatened to choke them all.

'Where is Remy; where was he when the Sentinels attacked us?'

Ororo demanded and it was not just those who knew her well who could hear the tension and anger in her voice. Scott wondered with sudden sympathy what all this must be doing to Ororo. More so than anyone, she had always defended Gambit. Scott shook his head, he could only imagine how betrayed she must be feeling now.

'_He_ be gettin' his ass kicked in de bunker,' another voice, familiar and timely, crashed the silent and uncomfortable moment. All eyes turned towards the heavily limping Cajun as he hobbled towards them a growling Wolverine at his back. Gambit wandered into the knife edge tension and offered up a dilatory wave.

'Bonsoir mes braves; y'all been havin' fun wit' de pretty purple robots?' There was a grating and completely out of place irreverence to the greeting that was as typically Gambit as it was unwelcome.

No one said a word in response as Gambit continued his slow progress towards them but everyone continued to stare intently. Eventually a greatly bloodied Cajun dragged himself with strained dignity straight over to Sinister. Scott could only watch alongside the rest of the team as their erstwhile teammate came to a stop right beside the cold hearted geneticist and glared up at him.

'An' jus' for de record homme; I weren' tryin to kill Summers, so don' be givin' me dat look.' Gambit scoffed and shook his head, 'It be tres stupid to go killin' de only homme around dat can hurt you, non, m'sieur Essex?'

Sinister's lips curled in a humourless smile, 'Indeed it would a fatal mistake to harm Summers, Lebeau, for a great manner reasons.' The threat in his sibilant, yet grinding voice, was obvious but Gambit, cradling one wrist against this chest, just flapped his good hand negligently.

'Eh, whatever homme, not like I ain't heard dem threats befor'.'

The X-men continued to stare. Wolverine silently walked over to join his team, shaking his head ruefully. Another silence, no less strained, but this time carrying an air of bafflement with it descended like a curtain of heaviness. Finally it was Warren who spoke up.

'Gambit?'

'Oui?' The Cajun appeared to be in the process of searching the pockets of his trench coat one handed for a cigarette, though admittedly it was hard to tell.

Warren exchanged looks with the others. Bobby nodded encouragingly and nudged him in the ribs to continue, 'Go on War, _I'm_ not going to say it. I always have to say stuff like this, and I'm not doing it this time.'

Gambit regarded the pair curiously, or at least curiosity was suggested by his body language. As stated it was a little hard to tell; even Sinister was eyeing Gambit somewhat warily. Right at this moment the Cajun was worth a stare or three.

Warren nodded a little jerkily and licked his lips gathering himself before speaking, 'Gambit you do know that you're glowing, right?'

Gambit paused in the process of putting a glowing cigarette to his glowing lips. The tar like stains of congealing blood all over him stood out black as midnight against the rippling and shimmering veldt of colour that turned his clothes and his skin into a near blinding luminescence. He was glowing so brightly that the features of his face were mostly lost in the brilliance and it hurt to look at him dead on.

'Quoi?'

Gambit made a show of holding his hands out to his side and opened his glowing trench coat to look down on himself. His eyes were impossibly dark in a blindingly brilliant face when he looked back up and grinned at them as if absolutely nothing was wrong.

'I'm not glowin' homme, I'm jus' pleased to see you.' He winked at Warren chuckling at his own joke before popping the cigarette between his lips. Somehow he managed to light it without it blowing up in his face.

'It'll fade in a while, oui? Jus' de excitement of de moment, dat's all.' A shrug, casual and blasé, as if dripping liquid light and energy was an everyday occurrence for the former thief. The whole strange encounter shunted into the regions of the surreal with that exchange.

Not a single X-man said a word, mostly because no one could think of anything to say. Even Sinister was frowning at Gambit but eventually he gathered himself, reaching out to cup the other man's chin and tip his head up as if examining a misbehaving child.

'You said that the mutant Psylocke is responsible for demolishing the psi-blocks needed to regulate your powers?' he queried.

'Oui,' Gambit jerked out of the light hold and stepped unsteadily back, out of reach of Sinister. He puffed casually on his cigarette and continued to sway on his feet like a river reed in the breeze, 'You mind if'n I sit? I'm not feelin' so good.'

Sinister arched a brow but negligently waved a hand, 'It is unfortunate that the vast increase in your biokinetic potential has the side affect of altering your perceptions of reality and therefore impairing your cognisant faculties.'

Gambit kicked the headless torso of a Sentinel out of his way, only narrowly avoiding accidentally blowing it up on contact with his glowing foot, and sat cross legged on the floor idly taking leisurely drags from his cigarette. 'Ah oui, cognisant faculties be a real necessity in dis day an' age,' he agreed benignly.

Scott could feel his jaw unhinging in total bemusement and knew he was not the only one caught between the desire to laugh at the incongruity of Gambit sitting like a grade schooler at Sinister's feet and the equally powerful desire to grab the man by his glowing coat lapels and shake him until he made sense.

Wolverine snorted at the sight and whispered in aside to Scott and Jean, 'Gumbo's been actin' crazy, bouncin' from violent to depressed to _this_, since me and Bishop caught up to him. He only started glowing a little while back; don't know if he's plannin' something or if he's just lost it.'

Scott glanced from Wolverine to Gambit who was bickering with Sinister as the X-men's most insidious foe tried to examine Gambit for injuries. Scott could not get over the fact that Gambit did not seem to fear Sinister and that Sinister treated the Cajun with the same disturbing proprietary interest that he showed Scott.

Once again Scott found himself wondering what the _hell_ was going on here.

_Gambit's shields are totally gone, and he's broadcasting. I just can't make sense of it; it's like he's thinking on a totally different level of awareness. _

Jean's mental broadcast went out to every X-man at once, _He's in a lot of psychic pain. I can feel where Psylocke smashed his shield; it's like a deep, bleeding stab wound. It's possible Sinister's right and he's not in control of his own actions right now. He might not really understand what he's doing._

'So Gambit's insane?' Iceman spoke aloud but, as he might have just have been responding to Sinister's words of earlier it didn't matter. Both Sinister and Gambit turned to look at him however, breaking off their own battle of wills.

'Sanity be a matter of perspective homme,' Gambit pointed out archly and then turned back to Sinister, 'So you gon open a tesseract and send de X-men home oui? You an' I bot' know it ain't in your plans to be takin' dem prisoner or anyt'ing, an' dere could be more Sentinels comin'.' Gambit sounded infinitely reasonable.

Sinister looked down on him considering, 'I find myself wondering what the purpose was of this assault, Gambit? If you did not intend to harm Summers and ransom your own life for his what was your intention?'

Gambit grinned hugely like the Cheshire Cat and Scott was not the only X-man who tensed at that moment. Anyone who had ever played cards with Gambit would recognise that expression. 'You sure you_ really_ wan' to know?' the Cajun purred dangerously.

Evidently Sinister had never played cards with Gambit, or observed him after he had just won the pot, because he gave the worst possible answer.

'Yes I demand to know.'

Gambit chuckled low and delighted and then glanced over at Lorna with a bright smile on his still glowing face, 'He wan' to know mademoiselle, what you t'ink; should I tell him?'

Lorna looked as confused as the rest of the X-men and seemed unable to think of anything to say. Therefore it was Alex who spoke up. 'Personally, as an impartial participant, _I'd_ actually really like to know what you planned with all this.'

Scott turned to stare blindly and dumbfounded at his brother; he really felt like this indifferent, casually violent, person was not the Alex he had known all these years. He found himself once again cursing the Dark Beast for destroying the person Alex had been.

Gambit however laughed contentedly, 'Alright mon ami, since you asked nicely, I'll tell you.'

He paused and looked pointedly around at the gathered X-men, seeming completely unaware of the precariousness of his own situation - or maybe, and much more worryingly, he just didn't care.

Gambit's dark eyes looked like pits of burned pitch gouged into his glowing skull as he stared at the X-men. Only the shifting of the wildly fluctuating red, white, and pink glow of his face allowed any of them to see the predatory smile that scythed into place.

'Gather 'round mes amis,' he purred, 'for you not gon want to miss a moment o' dis.'

* * *

Rogue finished re-arranging the serried rows of her battalion of stuffed toys for the umpteenth time; Hermes the lion stood at the head of the company with Delilah the grey seal and Humphrey the teddy bear on the left and right respectively. In an act of outright insurrection Thomasina the octopus took a headlong dive off the shelf and into the wastepaper basket. Rogue saw this as a sign.

'Alright, that does it; Ah'm goin' after the team.'

She turned around bracing herself for another snide, back-biting jibe from the Remy shade and was therefore surprised to find that he wasn't in the room. A shiver of unease ran down Rogue's spine; there had barely been an hour in the day since the real Remy's departure wherein the shade hadn't been her constant companion. She didn't know whether to be relieved the increasingly spiteful shade wasn't there to mock and insult her or whether to worry that an out of sight Remy was more dangerous than one whispering poison in her ear.

Remy was like that; when faced with him on a day to day basis, even when they'd been getting along, she'd had to resist the desire to beat his brains in with the nearest blunt object to hand, and then when he wasn't under her feet she found herself worrying over where he was and what he was up to.

Rogue snorted, well that was typical, just when the shade could have been useful he wasn't around. Still Rogue didn't need him, she didn't need anyone. Pulling on her brown flight jacket over her uniform Rogue pinned her comm. badge into place and left her room.

The mansion was quiet; Sam was doing yard work out back, Hank was mooning over Threnody in the medlab and of course everyone else was either running wild (Remy) or on the seize and/or rescue mission. It made sneaking out of the grounds a cake walk.

As Rogue was crossing the open plan kitchen/dining room the Remy shade just suddenly appeared on the other side of the kitchen island. His face was pale and his eyes wide.

'Chere – watch out!'

Rogue reacted with ingrained instinct. She jumped and hovered up near the ceiling, fists raised and ready for an attack. A patch of winter sun shade in the corner of the room rippled and erupted, taking the form of the feminine figure that emerged from within.

Landing like a cat, psi-blade drawn, Psylocke dropped neatly down on the floor exactly where Rogue had been standing seconds before. Rogue's blood heated as she realised that Psylocke's blade would have pierced her head had it not been for the shade's warning.

'Go chere – get outta here!' The shade's red eyes were narrowed and fixed on Psylocke, though he made no move to attack, and of course being a figment of Rogue's imagination there wasn't anything he could do to begin with.

'Rogue,' Psylocke looked up, her red facial tattoo standing out like a heated brand against the perfect blackness of Psylocke's shadow form. Rogue bristled in response to the anger she could almost feel radiating from the other woman.

'I need to talk to you, Rogue.' Psylocke rose to her feet and her shadow form faded into normal skin tones. Rogue opened her mouth to feign ignorance or defiance but it was at that moment that Psylocke turned her head sharply and looked directly at the Remy shade. 'I need to talk to _both_ of you.'

* * *

Gambit pulled himself upright and glanced at his glowing hands, a slight frown puckering his brow and causing more cascading ripples to run through the uniform glow emanating from his body. He cocked his head towards Sinister.

'Dis is gon fade, right?'

'Eventually; it is a side effect of physical exertion and psychological stimuli.' Sinister sighed in long suffering fashion, 'Either discharge the accumulated energy in a controlled kinetic release or wait for your pulse, respiration, and adrenaline levels to stabilise.'

Gambit nodded, 'D'accord; t'ink I wait den, my charge been actin' funny since Betts fried my brain.' A pause in which time Gambit continued to ignore the gathered X-men in favour of Sinister, 'How come dis never happened before, when my powers went outta whack de firs' time?'

'Because you haemorrhaged before your powers had fully manifested; forcing me to remove a large amount of irreparably damaged brain tissue and thusly rendering you incapable of accessing the majority of your mutagenic potential,' Sinister said with exasperated patience.

'Really Lebeau this 'glow' is nothing more than a sustained excitement of the biokinetic energy stored in the cells of your body. It is barely a fraction of the power your mutant potential once possessed.'

'Sustained excitement?' Gambit actually snickered and then seemed to sway a little more violently on his feet. He took a step forward, almost falling, and Sinister reached out an arm to brace him. Gambit flinched away from him but managed to catch his balance before he fell backwards. Ember eyes narrowed dangerously.

'Don't touch me.' He said very levelly and the shifting palette of light and colour flowing through his body grew more intense in response. Sinister shook his head irritated.

'Enough of this Lebeau; you are clearly headed for another cerebral haemorrhage and I would sooner not have to remove any more of your brain tissue. I require you at least functional, after all.'

Sinister reached for Gambit once again, perhaps intending to take hold of him and open a tessaract away from the Beta-Star complex. Gambit recoiled violently from that hand, jerking away and falling backwards over a large piece of indeterminate debris.

'Enough; do not touch him!'

A bolt of lightning smashed down into the ground in the small piece of thin air between the reaching Sinister and the fallen Gambit. The Cajun hissed in pain at the searing burst of light and scrabbled backwards with one forearm over his blinded eyes. Sinister stopped and turned an indifferent, calculating gaze upon Storm who had stepped forward to face him.

'You would defend Lebeau, knowing what he did while in my employ to those you swore to protect? I had thought you of softer temperament than that, Wind-rider. Do the deaths of those who once offered you fealty mean so little that you would defend the liberty of their betrayer?'

Ororo's eyes widened and her face paled, 'What?' She whispered bloodlessly.

Gambit's head jerked up and he hissed again, like a startled cat, staring at Sinister. 'Non,' he stumbled to his feet anger giving him strength, 'You not gon do dis; you don care if'n dey know or not.' He waved an arm in an angry chopping motion, 'You send de X-men on home, Essex, dis 'tween you an' me alone, oui?'

A ripple of unease went through the X-men from Storm standing a step ahead down to Logan on the edge of the group. The Canadian ground his teeth, 'Shit…..the tunnels – _those _tunnels.' He speared a hard look over at Gambit who was staring wide-eyed at Storm.

Ororo for her part was staring blankly into space; her eyes wide and glassy.

* * *

Rogue swallowed around the sudden dryness in her throat and rallied as best she could, 'Betsy, hon, ah'm glad ta see ya better – does Hank know…'

Psylocke tossed her head, shaking the silky tail of her indigo hair back behind her shoulders, 'Save it Rogue.'

She narrowed her eyes keenly moving fluidly towards the kitchen island and the knife rack, 'Did you really think that you could enter my mind, attempt to erase my memories, using my own powers, and I would not know? Bloody hell, Rogue, I'm a sodding telepath; I'm incapable of forgetting except via tampering and I've been trained to recognise telepathic manipulation.'

Rogue felt heat and colour rise in her cheeks, 'Ah don't know what ya're talkin' about sugar. Maybe ah should call Hank.' She reached for her comm. badge. Betsy smiled coldly.

'Oh by all means call him; I'm sure he'll be delighted to hear what you did to me, to a patient under his care no less.'

The English Ninja flicked her gaze back to the empty space occupied by the tense and silent Remy shade.

'I'm sure he'll be equally thrilled to hear about your little psi-ghost too.' Betsy raised her fist and activated her psi-blade, 'Still they do say that one good deed begets another, perhaps I can exorcise the shade for you, my dear?' the other woman's violet eyes were cold as chips of ice.

'No!' Rogue glanced involuntarily at the Remy shade and then dropped down from the ceiling to face Psylocke feet solidly on the floor and hands at her hips. 'Ya keep that blade o' yours away from me, Betts or ya goin' ta be drinkin' ya meals through a straw for the next year, ya hear me?'

Betsy chuckled and slipped demurely up onto one of the barstool seats clustered around the kitchen island. 'Well, as much as I'd enjoy the opportunity to work off some my own aggression I think we have bigger problems. Meaningless posturing and threats are getting us nowhere.' Once again she looked over at the shade. 'I admit I'm not sure how I'm able to see _that_, but it certainly is convenient.' She gave the Remy shade a slow once over and then fixed her gaze on Rogue.

'You need to get it out of your head Rogue; whatever it is, it isn't doing you any good.' Once again Betsy shot a look over to the shade that remained utterly silent and watchful.

Rogue crossed her arms over her chest and hesitated mulishly halfway between the kitchen island and the door. If she bolted and went after the team Betsy would tell Hank what she had done in using her powers to keep Betsy unconscious, and although Rogue was perfectly prepared to fight her own corner and defend herself if she had to – especially against Betsy (the bitch) what worried her was what the X-men would do when they found out about the Remy shade.

Her eyes met the silent visage of the phantom Remy for a long moment.

The Shade finally bestirred itself, nodding almost respectfully to Rogue. 'It been fun chere, but dis my cue to leave, oui?'

Affixing a lazy grin to his face the shade walked around the kitchen island, arms spread wide, and sauntered over to Betsy.

'Go ahead, ma cherie, do your worst.'

Betsy did not hesitate; her psi-blade lashed out in a cobra like strike and pierced the shade's skull. With nary a whimper or a cry the Remy shade vanished from sight.

'No!' Rogue clapped her hand over her mouth, shocked and suddenly cut adrift in her own mind.

Betsy turned toward her then, opened her mouth to speak and then her violet eyes widened and she collapsed to her knees on the kitchen floor, clutching her head. Rogue could only stand there, watching.

* * *

Ororo's visceral gasp of understanding cut through the gathering tension like a falling guillotine. She dropped to her knees where she stood and stared at Remy.

'Tell me it is not so, my friend, tell me you did not have a hand in that horror; I could forgive you for anything but that.'

'What?' Iceman spoke for the rest of the X-men, 'Shit what the hell is going on?'

Cyclops mutely shook his head, 'I'm not sure I want to know.'

'No!' Gambit's face contorted in cold fury, 'No, fuck you Essex, we ain't playin' dis game.' He moved unsteadily toward Sinister without looking at Ororo, who watched him helplessly with tears shimmering unshed upon her eyelashes, Gambit stood almost nose to nose with Sinister.

'Six years homme; six years an' I ain't gon fool for de same tricks, hear me?' His eyes flared as he snarled into Sinister's face.

'Did you t'ink I din't know what you were tryin' to do to me, homme? De blood on my hands, what I done, was by your design. Guilty as sin me, an' I'll burn in hell for every soul dat suffered an' died in dose tunnels, I know dis an' I accept dis, but you ain't gon use my guilt to control me. I will not let you use dem dat died like dat.'

Sinister smiled the smile of the sociopath, 'You surprise me Lebeau; I had not expected this of you.' The smile left his face so fast it was like water through a cracked glass.

'Your rebellion is futile; surely you realise that there is no place in this world for you but the place I have made for you. You are mine, Lebeau, and I will do with you as I will.'

Gambit smiled and it was almost a mirror of the cold sneer and bearing of teeth, which was Sinister's smile, 'I belong to you, oui? Devil's own, me, dat right?' Gambit's voice was a cold, venomous purr the glowing colour beginning to leech from his skin and bones.

'Yes,' Sinister's monosyllabic response was as sibilant as a snake.

Staring at the two, the deliberately evasive Gambit and the cold, egotistical Sinister, Scott was not the only X-man horribly struck by how similar they seemed. The mirror darkly was distorted but some frightening awareness jarred into Scott's head.

It took Scott a moment to realise what it was that so scared him about the scene but then it came to him with blinding clarity; Gambit and Sinister were a match. Perhaps not in powers, or in physical strength, but in sheer cold, secretive, calculation they were a match - or at least could be, with time. They shared the same mindset but put it to different uses; neither man reacted to the world as others did, both were motivated by deeply secret, but disparate passions, both were steeped in misdirection and hidden scheming.

'Goddess no…..' Ororo's exclamation was more moan than words. Jean squeezed Scott's arm for comfort, both hers and his, and Wolverine continued to growl, low and continuous, under his breath as his eyes remained glued to the two men before them. It was like a horrible dream, or some dark play; the X-men could not force themselves to intervene and could do nothing but watch the face off as it progressed.

'D'accord den,' Gambit stepped back from Sinister, nodding as if in response to some unspoken decision on his part. He raised his voice, tilting his still faintly luminous head up and throwing back his shoulders, 'M'sieur Tooth sil vous plait, why don't you come out an' bring our friend?'

A nasty smile sliced over Gambit's face as Sabretooth prowled forward from the shadows, a vicious chuckle bubbling from vicious killer's throat. Wolverine's snarl dropped another octave and he tensed like a coiled spring. Scott instinctively laid a restraining hand on the other man's tree trunk thick arm.

'Easy Wolverine,' he murmured so low only the Canadian and Jean could hear, 'I have the feeling we need to see how this plays out before we can make a move.'

'This ain't good Cyke; yer ain't smellin' what I'm smellin', Gumbo ain't our friend today.' Wolverine argued in heated aside. Before he could say anything in response however Scott was interrupted by the main player in this twisted drama.

'Question, homme, before we get started wit' de big reveal.'

Gambit's voice was almost gratingly chirpy as he cocked his head to the side and eyed Sinister with a smug smirk lighting his draining features.

'Tell me Essex, did you know dat ev'ry Prime Sentinel on patrol has a direct link to central command, via satellite? Dere brains be constantly beamin' up information dat dey seein'; ev'ry mutant dey register, dat mutant's face an' powers gets broadcast to central command instantly.' Gambit's smile was positively evil, 'Fascinatin' non?'

Sinister frowned and the diamond set in the centre of his forehead flashed dully, 'You would not dare.'

Gambit smiled wider as Sabretooth ambled over to him carrying something heavy and faintly round in shape in a piece of torn canvas cloth. Logan's growling became a subliminal roar as his nostrils flared wide; scenting whatever was in the sack.

'You have no clue what I would dare, monsieur Essex.' Gambit's voice was heated steel.

'Your life would be forfeit.' Sinister looked from the sack to Sabretooth's vicious, sharp toothed leer and then to Gambit. The Cajun shrugged elegant and nonchalant despite his torn clothes and bloody body.

'Ask me if I care homme; you already damned my soul - what do I have to live for except screwin' you over, eh?'

Not once taking his eyes from Sinister Gambit held up one hand for the sack. Sabretooth snickered with something approaching glee as he handed over the bag and stepped back.

'Dese new Sentinels, dey real int'restin' non? See, de Sentinel's, dere central processin' core, dere _brains_, dey can go on functionin', an' broadcastin' data for a whole hour after de head, it been severed from de body.'

Gambit lifted the sack, cradling it in the crook of the elbow of his bad arm and supporting whatever was inside with his good hand, 'Dat's real useful intel to know, oui?'

'I don't like this Cyclops,' Warren had pressed closer to whisper his aside into his leader's ear. 'Whatever Gambit's up to it's not good. We can't just stand here and wait for him to sell us out.'

Ororo rose to her feet and moved towards the group as well but her eyes were still glued to Gambit. Standing just a shade behind the X-men Lorna caught Alex's hand and gave him an emphatic look. Very slowly the pair began to back away from the group.

'See, de funny t'ing is, de o't'er day, when I went a-callin' at de FoH buildin' in St Louis, I bumped int' a Sentinel.'

Gambit shook his head casually looking down on the ground an amused but indifferent smile stroking over his lips.

'Nasty fight me an' m'sieur Sentinel had – got de feelin' me he took a _good look_ at me too.' Gambit looked up at Sinister red eyes sparking, 'Pretty sure dat ev'ry sentinel in America knows who I be now; dat's too bad, oui?'

'You imbecile,' Sinister actually hissed like a hot kettle.

Gambit smiled hugely, 'You t'ink so?' he asked faux thoughtful, 'Me, personally, I t'ink of it as security; you gon struggle to use me to hurt people if'n I'm a marked man, non?'

He stroked his good hand over the lump in the sack. There were dark, wet stains covering the bottom of the cloth, as if whatever was inside was leaking vital fluids.

Sinister shifted and the tassels of his cloak shivered and rubbed together as dry as dead skin in the faint, soot laden, breeze of early evening. 'Do not test me Lebeau; I will kill you if I must.'

Gambit chuckled and shook his head, 'Non, see I don t'ink you will. For den you lose non?' Gambit peered at Sinister curiously for a moment. 'Dere be no lil' Gambit clones runnin' 'bout doin' your dirty work for you, oui? So if'n you lose _me_, you lose whatever it is you wan' me to do for you dat only I can do.' Gambit's smile was hard and cold and more terrifying even than Sinister's, 'An' you don' like to lose homme; you don like it at all.'

Sinister was silent, utterly silent. For the first time ever he had nothing to say in comeback. His lips drew back slowly from his jagged teeth like a cobra poised to strike but held back by Gambit's implacable confidence.

'Now me, homme,' Gambit continued blithely unconcerned by the twisted fury maligning Sinister's features, 'I don' have anyt'ing to play for lef' in de world. Lost my chance at redemption, lost my woman, lost my family long ago – t'anks to you I lost any chance o' eternal peace as well.' Gambit continued to caress, as he spoke, the bulging sack covered lump in the crook of his elbow like a man might stroke a cat or cradle a baby.

There was something so utterly obscene about that one action that it made Scott Summers feel physically sick; he refused to acknowledge the macabre conviction taking root in his mind that he knew precisely what was really in that sack.

Gambit oblivious to, or just not caring, what affect his words and actions had on his former teammates, continued talking in a low melodious purring voice.

'Never play 'gainst a man wit' not'ing to win an' not'ing lef' to lose homme; it ain't safe.'

The Cajun looked down almost affectionately on the oozing lump in his arms, 'You take a man's hope away, strip him of ev'ryt'ing dat give him his self respect, his belief dat he better den de wors' scum in de gutter an, well,' Gambit looked up and smiled almost gently, 'Scum is all you gon get, oui?'

He shifted the lump in his arms and every X-man grew instantly tense. Lorna and Alex took another step backwards, like rats preparing to flee a sinking ship. Ororo moved then, almost jerkily, breaking free of the twisted spell of Remy's words that held them all in thrall.

'Remy, enough!'

She held out her hands towards him, 'I do not know what you plan to do here but if you were ever my friend in truth, if there is but a germ of the man I believed in still within you, you will come here now.'

She continued to hold her hand out to Gambit in the answering silence even though he gave no acknowledgement that he even heard her. Ororo's voice was firm as she reached out to him but her eyes filled with tears, 'Come here, my friend, do not do this.'

A tremor ran through the Cajun's lean form and a muscle jumped in his cheek. Still Gambit did not look at Ororo or the hand she held out to him, beseeching and hopeful even now. Yet the hitch in his shoulders and the convulsive swallow he took spoke for him; his resolve wavered as Ororo's words sliced through him like a knife. No one moved a muscle, no one dared to breathe, as Gambit hesitated and the soft echo of Ororo's painful plea repeated in all their minds.

There was a moment of shining hope; a moment on the brink where redemption and damnation hovered on the same horizon, held on the knife edge of possibility. Ororo's outreaching hand shook; Gambit's shoulders dropped, his spine straightened, and never once did he look at the woman responsible for bringing him to the X-men in the first place.

'Too late,' the words were almost too soft to hear.

Gambit's hand tightened on the opening sack. His expression smoothed out and he lifted his head, a bitter conviction hardening his features. He continued to look at nothing and no one but the hated eyes of Sinister before him. His choice had been made the moment he had conceived of his plan; he would not back down for the faint hope of a tainted forgiveness that could only ever be false.

'Smile for de Sentinel mes amis!'

Ripping the blood saturated cloth away Gambit hurled the severed head of the sentinel through the air directly at the gathered X-men.


	26. Chapter 26

_A/N: Hello Slightly thanks for the review; you made me laugh…my mind went straight into the gutter when you stated that you thought he'd 'flash it at Sinister' *ahem* sorry. ;) _

_Anyway this chapter was an absolute monster to write….so many re-writes, so many bits that didn't fit…sigh….I apologise that it's a bit fragmented but things will come together really soon…and hey! The Garden's in it and you all wanted to see that, right? ;)_

**Chapter Twenty-five: Impression**

**2063 A.D. **

They used to call this long, wide, empty stretch of broken concrete and asphalt a highway. He remembered his Grandmother telling him about gasoline guzzling 'cars' that used to clogged these roads back in the long distant past before the sky-ways opened up the sky to all sorts of freight.

Of course they couldn't travel the sky-ways; another skirmish had broken out in the aftermath of the failed Summers Rebellion and now the human forces were rounding up any mutants they could find and sending them to detention centres.

The young boy looked around him at the weed strangled 'highway' and the derelict brick buildings, like fallen mountains that still lined the dry, red desert on either side. There had been a city here once, he remembered Granny telling him that too. That city was gone now, except for the few broken down buildings still littering the flat horizon here and there. The boy shivered in the dry heat. Everything was covered with a patina of red dust and heat haze and he didn't like it.

He wished he could go home, but he didn't have one anymore. The city he used to live in wasn't safe for him and his sister anymore and Granny was dead. There was no one in the world left to take care of him now…no one except _him._

The boy stared at the old man walking ahead of him with the aid of a metal staff. The old man had come out of nowhere just days before his grandmother had died; come and claimed them because no one else would. He had red eyes that seemed to burn right through everything he looked at and his smile made the eleven year old strangely angry; the man could have been a hundred years old or older, it seemed impossible to tell. There was something in his sharp boned, lined face that said he had seen more than the boy could ever imagine and none of it was good.

Lucas Bishop was scared but he would never, ever, admit it.

'Keep up pup, fall behind an' the Nimrod's can have you.'

Without turning around or stopping in his steady, slow drudge onwards the old man called behind him to Lucas. His sister Shard turned around to poke her tongue out at him; Shard had always been fearless and she now walked along right beside the strange old man.

Lucas gritted his teeth and hurried to catch up. He jumped over the litter of strange rusted metal hulks that he had no names for; metal skeletons of ancient redundant machines. He glared up at the man once he caught up. The old man bent over his staff a little as he walked and did not bother to look at Lucas at all.

The dry old white man wore strange clothes, like long drapes of black and grey and brown cloth that didn't look like any sort of clothing Lucas had ever seen before. His hands gripping his staff were thin and liver-spotted, the skin marked with scar tissue and the fingers gnarled with arthritis; how was an old white man supposed to protect them all from the Nimrod and Emplate patrols?

'Where are we going old man?' He demanded, tilting his head to glare up at the man. It was important that Lucas show this old guy exactly who was boss; no way he was putting his and Shard's safety in this dry old stick's hands.

The red on black eyes flicked sideways towards him, 'You'll see soon enough pup.'

'Don't call me that!' Lucas shouted abruptly, refusing to admit that the old man's eyes and sly smile scared him. To his further annoyance the old man's smirk grew even wider and he chuckled. That laughter grated on the last of Lucas's nerves. It was such a dry, rasping sound. The man shook his head, pure silver white hair slithering over his narrow, hunched shoulders.

'Ah pup, you remind me o' a femme I used to know when you say that.'

Lucas narrowed his eyes furiously as Shard giggled, 'Ooooh Lucas you hear that? You sound like a woman!'

His sister always called him by his first name, just as he called her Shard but the old man always called him 'Bishop', except when he called him 'pup'; Lucas wasn't sure which name he hated more.

Lucas Bishop clenched his fists at his sides tightly then and deliberately stopped walking. He darted a hand out around the old man to grab his sister and pull her to a halt too.

'I don't trust you and we're not going another step until you tell us where we're going!'

He yelled at the old man's back as he kept hobbling forward towards the shimmering towers and high rises of the distant new city in the far distance beyond this desert wasteland. Lucas knew the name of the city and knew it was under XSE command. If they could get there they would be safe – at least until the humans laid siege to the city as they had all the others he and Shard had taken refuge in over their lifetime.

'Lucas!' Shard tried to pull free of him but he wouldn't let her, 'Lucas we're supposed to trust him, Granny said so.'

'I don't care; I don't like him.'

The old man had stopped and turned to face them now; his expression was mild. He chuckled wheezingly again. 'If I tell you where we going, will you believe me?' He asked keenly, eyeing Lucas with obvious amusement.

Lucas glared, 'I don't believe a word you say,' he snapped out defiantly. The old man smiled hugely. His sallow, tight, and creased white skin pulling back from surprisingly strong teeth in a narrow face.

'Well den,' the old man cackled, the faint hint of a richer, warmer accent, something foreign and lost to time, brushing his words, 'There be no point in telling you anything, is there?' the old man leaned closer over his cane, 'If a body got no mind to believe, then every word they hear is nothing more than lies.'

The old man managed a surprisingly smooth pivot and turn on his heels before he started to walk forward again.

'You can follow if you want, chillen, or you can stay behind. I promised your Grandmere, God rest her soul in peace, that I take care o' you but I promise the two o' you nothing. You want to be alone in the world that your business – I won't stop you.'

'Wait Mr Lebeau sir!' Shard broke free of Lucas and ran after the old man.

'Shard!'

He yelled at her but it was too late, she had already caught up to the slow meandering old man and grasped hold of a flapping fold of his rag-like clothing. The old man looked down at her, features as sharp and keen as an ancient eagle. He reached out a hand and Shard cheerfully took hold of it.

The two continued on, the click of the old man's cane loud and piercing as it smacked down on the broken asphalt of the old, defunct highway. Lucas ground his teeth in silent anger for a moment before running to catch up yet again.

'I still don't trust you,' he told the old man once he had come abreast with him. The old white man nodded amiably as if he had heard that particularly statement a thousand times before.

'Fair enough pup,' he said sagely, 'Don't remember askin' you to trust me anyhow.'

Lucas rolled his jaw, teeth gnashing, 'For the last time _old man_ where are we going?'

A sly smile was part answer, 'To the Jardin pup; I am takin' you to my Garden.'

* * *

**New Orleans – sort of**

Betsy Braddock blinked her eyes open and knew instantly that she was no longer in the mansion. She was on her hands and knees and under her flesh the rough concrete bit deep. She could smell the rank odours of spilled beer, vomit and urine and the gutter she had fallen into was overflowing with vile fluids. Pieces of brightly coloured confetti and shiny plastic beads sat upon the surface of that unspeakable slurry like diamonds in sludge.

Betsy lifted her head and looked around her; the streets of the city were crowded as she had remembered them being from the last time she had come to this harsh, cold and misleading place. Flurries of faceless, grey skinned and black garbed automatons stepped off the curb and waded through the gutters, spreading filth as they moved on through the warren of tightly packed alleys.

Betsy rose to her feet nervously the streets of this simulacrum of central New Orleans was familiar to her, she had seen it twice before, but she did not know why she was here now. This was Gambit's mindscape not her own.

The sky above her head as she looked up to orientate herself was a baleful, universal pulsing grey, a drab throbbing luminance that made her head ache and her sinuses sting. The wide swathe of the Avenue stretched down to the Mississippi waterfront in washed out shades of shadow and the crowds surged forward and backward like a faintly hostile tide.

Betsy knew that if she waded into those crowds she would be swallowed and drowned for good, forced into that endless, colourless, shapeless milieu forever. She had recognised that the crowds were one of the many traps in Gambit's mind the first time she had come here; one trap in a world of traps and hidden pit-falls.

She needed to get to the French Quarter that was one of the flashpoints in this mindscape and the place that she had found the Gambit avatar the first time she had waded into his mind after he work from his coma. Having made up her mind she moved on, keeping her head down and avoiding getting too close to the aimless shoals of shades populating the streets. Betsy could feel eyes watching her from every one of the thousands of dark corners in this place.

How had this happened? She wondered as she shouldered her way along the sidewalks. How had she ended up in this mindscape again just from trying to sever the fragment of Gambit's consciousness from Rogue's mind? Betsy jolted to a stop outside the black, opaque window of what would in the real world, have been an upscale fashion boutique, and braced herself against the wall.

Was that the secret? Had Rogue somehow absorbed one of Gambit's watchmen? Was that what the fragment was? If so that would explain why a perfect simulacrum of Gambit's mindscape existed at the root of the Gambit fragment in Rogue's mind.

Narrowing her eyes Betsy looked up at one of the few incongruous flashes of colour and vibrancy in this stark, hard, and unforgiving place. She frowned as her eyes focused on a large, neon lit sign, an old fashioned awning swinging from a grey wall: _The Dead Man's Gambit_.

Hmm, well that was certainly new. Betsy moved towards the building and discovered that it was an old movie theatre. The theatre's façade was ornate and fussy with an odd amalgam of nineteen fifties Americana and Art Deco design; the neon light from the sign, an almost blinding fuchsia, bled into the angry grey of the sky.

Betsy pondered the building sceptically from the outside; the banning heading, written in wonky red lettering proclaimed the firm for the day: _The Life and Crimes of Remy Lebeau._ A poster on the wall listed the showing times and pricing range in both French and English. Betsy's brow puckered in confusion. What was going on?

The first time Betsy had penetrated Gambit's defences and reached this mindscape she had not found any landmarks or entry points; all she had managed to discern before the Gambit avatar watchman had caught her was the whispers of pain, death and betrayal that slithered from every shadow. Those voices were a cacophony of malice; a thousand hissed half truths and slanderous allegations.

The second time she had smashed through his defences, Gambit himself had given her a way in albeit one that proved to be another trap; she had found herself aboard a riverboat casino where every game was Russian roulette, the house always won, and debts were paid in blood and shame. It had been all she could do to escape that hellish construct with her sanity intact and of course no sooner had she done so, then Rogue had tried to steal her memory of all she had managed to learn.

Therefore looking up at the _Dead Man's Gambit _theatrefrom the sidewalk she was less than willing to enter through the stained glass and brass doors until she knew what was going to greet her on the other side.

'Where are you Gambit – what game are you playing?' she demanded of the eerily soundless streets of the Quarter.

The crowds continued to mill hither and thither all around her, eyeless, lipless, featureless and androgynous. There was the occasional flash of lurid colour, like the spark of Gambit's bio-kinetic charge, breaking the heavy omnipresent greyness of the world, but she could not pick out any trace of a brown trench coat wearing man.

Betsy pursed her lips; she was an alpha class telepath, she didn't have to run this maze if she didn't wish it. She could rip this construct apart without breaking a sweat if she wanted to.

Her back straightened and she stopped cowering against the wall of the ominously named theatre; angry at her own weakness Betsy surged straight through the fast flowing stream of foot traffic filling the sidewalk, elbowing the faceless grey ghosts out of her way. She stepped out onto the road and prowled right through a speeding car that roared up out of nowhere and tried to mow her down.

'Nice try, Gambit.' She smirked and kept walking. She was the master here; he could only hurt her if she wished it. She had forgotten that the first two times and she would admit that for a non-psychic Gambit's mind was extraordinarily well fortified, but she would not forget it again.

Ignoring the obvious lure that was the _Dead Man's Gambit_ Betsy fought against the stream of people pushing the other way down the sidewalk. Her destination was the deepest, darkest corner of Gambit's mindscape she could find. Betsy was convinced she would find the seedy truth this strangely depressed and cold cityscape hid only in the depths of the darkest shadow.

Head high and proud she prowled onward into the darkness that closed in around her like a river fog. She did not notice the lean man in the trench coat who watched her from the ticket booth of the theatre.

The Remy shade watched her go, cigarette dangling unlit from his bottom lip and bright smirk in place as he leaned back in his seat inside the ticket booth. He shook his head almost pityingly; some people just never learned. Ah well the femme would figure it out eventually.

Giving up on the stubborn telepath for the moment the shade turned back to the playbill he was writing out for an upcoming show-reel: _The True Confessions of a Conman_. He smiled pleased with the finished product. Yes, he would have to add this new feature to the revue; the punters would love it.

Leaving the booth the Remy shade entered the cosy depths of the theatre and moved off to prepare the screening room; Betsy would find her way back here eventually and he would have to have the movie ready for her.

'Walk a thousand miles in my footsteps,' the shade purred amusedly to himself as he prepared the old fashioned projector and file reel, 'an' you only ever gon' go backwards.'

He smirked letting his eyes dance over every resplendent corner of his theatre of sins. He wondered just how long it would take Betsy to figure out that all roads in this place led to the theatre and just how battered she was going to get figuring that out. There were a lot of nasty things in the shadows round here, after all.

The shade chuckled darkly as that thought took root. 'Enjoy de tour Betts; don' nobody deserve it more'n you.'

* * *

**2009 – Beta-Star Facility**

Bishop hesitated, drawn to an abrupt stop by what he saw as he rounded the corner of the sub-basement of the Beta-Star complex. His breath hissed out between his teeth.

'You!'

He reached for his gun and the killer for hire, Fatale, who had once tried to kill him on the orders of her creator, twisted around to stare at him. She was already battered from her encounter with Sinister and her hands were filled with the limp weight of her creator. The Dark Beast, gravely injured but alive, lay half covered by the rubble and debris that had hidden him from the inattentive Sinister.

'Oh shit,' Fatale dropped the dazed McCoy and shimmered into invisibility as Bishop opened fire on her.

* * *

**2009 – Outside the Beta-Star Facility**

The severed Sentinel head arced through the air, hurled as accurately as any of Gambit's cards. The world exploded into activity and multiple things happened at once.

'Goddess no!'

Instantly, before the projectile could reach the peak of its ascending arc two beams of energy hit the head dead on. Two ruby bands of light and power combined and pulverised the skull; Cyclops optic blast hit the skull dead centre at the same instant that Sinister all but incinerated the macabre object in turn.

Simultaneously Sabretooth leapt forward to block Wolverine's lunge for Gambit and Havok moved unobserved into position behind his brother. Polaris wrapped herself in a magnetic shield and closed her eyes in concentration.

Gambit stepped back and watched as the Sentinel head was reduced to nothing left but pulp and bone shards and a nasty, greasy stench of meat in the air in a matter of seconds. He had just enough time to fumble a fistful of cards into his good hand before an enraged Sinister turned on him.

'You will pay for this thief.' The words were barely decipherable; Sinister's speech was so maligned with incandescent fury.

Lorna opened her eyes, magnetic energy simmering all around her. Wolverine lashed out at Sabretooth with his claws and Phoenix pulled the two apart with her powers. Cyclops twisted snapped his eyes closed and willed himself to remain calm even as the hackles on the back of his neck rose. He knew that Alex was behind him; his brother's powers called to him.

Storm remained frozen in place; she could not tear her eyes from Gambit as he stood, silent and patient in the heart of the chaos he had unleashed. Iceman re-enforced his ice form and maintained his grip on his friend's arms; Warren Worthington, flushed with fury, resisted using his huge wing span to smack Iceman away from him, his eyes narrowed like a Hawk's and fixed on the traitorous thief.

All this happened in seconds; the greasy steam from the remains of the Sentinel head rose drowsily into the air as time struggled to keep up with all that was happening.

Sinister moved then and, faster than the eye could follow, caught Gambit around the throat lifting him off his feet by the neck and shaking the man like a rag-doll. The battered mutant did not attempt to break free and merely maintained his grip on the un-charged brace of cards in his unbroken hand.

'I will see you suffer for this trickery.' Sinister hissed throttling the thief.

Sabretooth stumbled back from Phoenix's telekinetic hold, raising his gorged arm to his lips and licking away the blood like a cat. Wolverine continued to fight Phoenix's hold. His instincts were screaming to him that Creed, Dane, and Lebeau had to be taken out and quickly. The three of them were more of a threat right not then Sinister.

'Leggo o' me Redd!' he snarled.

A hand touched Scott's shoulder, and his brother whispered in his ear, 'Get ready big bro.' Scott shuddered as he felt his brother's powers flow into his body from that one grip on his shoulder; his eyes, even clenched closed, began to simmer with energy.

'You fucking traitor,' Warren snarled, wings unfurling as he tore free of Iceman's restraining grip. The Archangel took wing but hesitated; he had more sense than to attack when Sinister had hold of Gambit.

Victor Creed shifted moving further back from both Sinister and the X-men; his body language was wary but a cruel smirk danced over his leonine head, 'Can't believe yer fell for that; the punk had yer all going with that Sentinel processin' crap.' He snickered.

'It was a trick?' Ororo's head jerked up from where she had been standing staring at the smeared and steaming remains of the severed head. She turned to stare at Gambit who had finally begun to struggle against Sinister's strangle-hold.

'Gotcha,' He croaked dangling helplessly from Sinister's arm and still laughing defiantly even facing his imminent demise. 'Can't…..uck….can' believe you fell for dat….ack…..trick….homme…figured you mos' o all got to know dat even a machine got to have a power source; a head wit' out somet'ing to power it just dead meat, non?…..ack.'

'You tricked us?' Iceman demanded building a snow ramp so that he could reach the same height that Warren hovered at. 'So the Sentinel didn't scan us? It was all just a bunch of bull; but why?'

Iceman kept one eye on Warren as he asked his question. He didn't like the look in his old friend's eyes. The last thing he needed was for Warren to kill Gambit and then go into an angst and guilt trip forever more.

'It was a trick; you tricked us all,' Ororo repeated dully and the sky grew black with the gathering tumult; the crackle of lightning and the thick static of thunder filled everyone's senses.

Alex squeezed his older brother's shoulder. 'Any minute now, Scottie, on my mark.' He whispered, anticipation dripping from his low tone as he carefully fed more power into Scott.

Scott sucked in a breath, 'Alex what the hell….?'

'Wait and see Scott; the coup de grace is coming.'

Time moved forward still, tripping over the seconds as the crescendo built; Polaris bit her lip and waited. The moment was almost upon them.

* * *

**New Orleans - Sort of**

It would take more than her current predicament to force Elizabeth Braddock to admit that she was quite completely lost. Frowning she looked about and all around her; the swarming crowds filling the Avenue and French Quarter had faded away like river mist and now she found herself with nothing but the squat ugly tenements of New Orleans less salubrious residences for company. The sense of grey, enervating emptiness was horribly pervasive.

She had been so sure that the key to finding the truth would be here in the quiet corners of his mind and yet this place felt empty and dead, even the insidious bodiless whispering voices had left her behind when she left the crowds of the quarter.

'What bloody game is this?' Angrily Betsy swept her long fine hair from her face. She reached out with her powers for any hidden watchers and heard only the psychic echo of her own call rebounding in her thoughts. She was about to turn back the way she came when something odd caught her eye.

A lone dandelion grew from a deep crack in the concrete sidewalk; the weed's bright yellow flowering head was almost garishly cheerful and bright in the black, grey, and lurid neon pink colour scheme of the rest of this mindscape. Betsy walked over and prodded the weed with the toe of her boot; she wondered why Gambit's psyche had gone to the effort of adding weeds to this study in urban decay and dystopia.

In a fit of pique, and to prove a point, Betsy Braddock stamped down on the cheerful little weed with the toe of her boot and crushed the flower with her heel. Petals and pollen smeared across the concrete like blood but Betsy did not notice. Angry and prideful she marched back towards the hive of activity in the French quarter. She did not turn back to view the tiny, but brutal, piece of destruction she had wrought.

The dandelion, shattered and crushed, reformed instantly like a dream and sprang back to resilient attention. Moment later a dozen more dandelion heads poked up from the deep fissure in the concrete sidewalk and a faint whisper of jasmine and honeysuckle wafted over from an abandoned corner. Unobserved and unheeded wild roses began to creep and wind around the rusted chain link of an old fence and a riot of crocuses burst into life in the cab of an abandoned pickup parked up in an old lot.

Self sufficient and silent the replica of Remy Lebeau's psyche did what it did best; it survived and it grew.

* * *

**2063 A.D.**

Lucas Bishop stood hand in hand with his sister Shard. He could feel his sister shaking as she convulsively gripped his hand all the more tightly. He could not drag his eyes away from the sights before him however to look at her.

'What is this place?' he finally found his voice.

The old man, who he had heard called 'Lebeau', and sometimes 'sir' and other times things that were much, much worse on their long journey to safety merely shook his head and smiled sitting down gratefully on a marvel carved bench under the shade of a venerable old tree.

'My Garden, pup, been growin' dis place longer den mos' folks been livin'.' He winked impishly and plucked an apple from a low hanging branch of the tree; scrubbing it clean using a fold of his dull drapery he held out the juicy green apple to Shard.

'Here 'p'tite, want a bite?' his smile was caustic and he cackled to himself in some private joke. 'This here be an apple from de tree o' knowledge, after all.' He added still laughing to himself. Lucas and Shard just stared at him.

The thick carpet of lush green grass under there feet was like nothing either child had ever seen before. The orchard they stood in was a wonder out of an old story book; the scent of apple blossom so sweet and strange that it made Shard cry. Fresh fruit and produce was something only the rich and human could afford most of the time and yet here, this old man had fruit enough to let it rot on the vine.

The old man pocketed the apple and idly stroked his long fingers over the long, sharp stems of the grass, leaning over to do so. 'Take a look around chillen,' he said absently strange accent growing thick in his distraction. 'Jus' be carefully,' he looked up and winked mischievously, 'dere be all kinds of t'ings in this here garden, an' some of them bite.'

Hesitantly at first and then with increasing curiosity the two children separated and went off on their own explorations. Even Lucas did not really believe that anything in this 'garden' would really hurt him; the old man Lebeau had taken care of them all this time, he was hardly likely to have done that just to harm them now.

Lucas could not put names to all the flowers, brushes, and trees that filled this indoor paradise. Walking through a narrow passage lined with roses he stopped to inhale their thick, heady aroma and was started by the buzzing of a real life Bee. Insects like flowers and greenery were a scarcity in Lucas' world of steel, polymer and processed food stuffs. The distant call of hidden bird song and the rustle of living creatures in the deep shadows of this subterranean wonderland alternatively startled and delighted Lucas. As he moved forward along the tunnel of roses a large and very uncharacteristic smile spread over his face. He had never seen anything so beautiful or wonderful.

'Hey Lucas come look at this!' Shard's voice rang out clear as a bell from just around a corner. Lucas started running, not recognising the lilt of surprise and eagerness in his sister's voice.

'Wow.' He skidded to a halt at the sight before him. Shard knelt balanced on the rim of a massive pink-veined white marble fountain, crystal clear water pattering down into a deep bowl, but that was not what held either child's attention riveted.

A very large bird stood between Lucas and Shard in the centre of the paved path. The bird had a tiny head covered in liquid shining bluish feathers and a large body in the same brilliant shade of blue and green. Still it was the long train of its tail feathers, insolently scraping across the floor behind the bird that were truly eye-catching, even furled as it was now.

'What is that thing?' Lucas asked as the big bird proudly walked on, head bobbing as it dragged its long tail behind it. Shard jumped down from the fountain and joined her brother as they both watched the bird waddle off into the emerald shadows of the garden.

'I think it's a Peacock,' Shard whispered excitedly, 'remember like that feather Granny used to keep in the vase back home?'

'Wow.' Lucas intoned once more. Shard caught his hand and tugged on his arm insistently.

'That wasn't what I wanted to show you - come over here!'

Pulling her older brother along with boundless energy Shard ran forward into a particularly dark part of the seemingly limitlessly huge secret garden deep under the desert floor. The two children ran through clouds of rose petals and falling blossom until finally they came to a dead halt.

Lucas froze in awe as he stood in the shadow of a huge pinnacle tower that rose up all the way into the echoing shadows of the garden's highest reaches. Cords of light in shades of sulphur orange, gold, pink and red writhed around and around the spindly tower like serpents. The whole structure rose from the lush gardens like a skeleton of blackened metal, striking up towards the long distant heaven like an accusation.

* * *

**The X-Mansion Medlab **

Threnody traced a finger down the shimmering web of the psi-dampening shield. 'Dr McCoy you must understand: Sinister's Garden is his life's work. It is everything; the Garden is more than just the nexus of his research: it _is_ his research.'

Hank McCoy chewed on the end of his spectacles as he perched on the edge of Threnody's bed. 'Fascinating; we had long posited the hypothesis that there must be a central location that Sinister worked from – beyond the tesseract connected laboratory Gambit and I once discovered.'

Threnody sighed patiently, 'Sinister has many labs; the cloning lab you destroyed was only one of his many satellite lairs. It was never connected to the Garden; no Marauder has ever been to the Garden. Not even Gambit but then, he was never a Marauder; not truly,' she added quietly.

Threnody's attitude towards the Cajun was interesting and convoluted. There was a sense of kinship, in that they had both acted as Sinister's reluctant right hand, and also jealously for Gambit was favoured by Sinister and had resided with the X-men while Threnody had remained a barely tolerated slave.

'Almagordo is the key to reaching the Garden; but the only person with the power to access the Garden without Sinister's say so is Gambit. I don't know if he knows that though. Sinister wished that his Black Womb legacy be kept secret from him so that he could not rebel.'

'Black Womb legacy?' Hank heard a crunch and realised he had beaten clean through the ear piece of his spectacle. Embarrassed he swiftly laid the glasses aside. Threnody gave no hint that she had noticed however, her gaze abstracted. Hank cleared his throat. 'What is the Black Womb legacy?'

Threnody's eyes snapped back into focus and she looked up at Hank through the filmy curtain of the psi-dampener with sorrowful eyes, 'The Black Womb was many things. A woman once, a mother many times, a helpmeet for Sinister and a catspaw both; she gave her name to the genetic research she and Sinister spear-headed in the Almagordo.'

Hank felt like his head was swimming he struggled to keep up against the flow of information he did not understand, 'And this Almagordo project; you said it was a defunct nuclear research facility?'

Threnody shook her head and sighed once again fighting to explain things that to her had become the fabric of everyday life as Sinister's overlooked and mistreated lab assistant.

'That was just a cover the site never handled nuclear materials; in the fifties it was a chemical warfare research lab funded by the government.' Threnody looked keenly at Hank; her eyes older by far than her years. 'The government did not know what the managing directors Dr Milbury and Mueller really did in the bowels of the facility however; they did not know that it was not chemical weapons but mutant children that Mueller grew deep under the dust and rock of New Mexico.'

Hank frowned there were too many questions to hope to gain answers to at once. He had no choice but to stick to the most superficial as he gained a picture both twisted and cruel of what was truly going on. 'Mueller; I am aware of Sinister's various aliases but the name Mueller is unfamiliar to me.'

Threnody nodded calmly, 'Not many know of the Black Womb; _I_ do not even know if she still lives. She was once Sinister's most valued assistant; the female progenitor of the Summers' line in the eighteen nineties and the mother of all Sinister's Black Womb children.'

Hank felt his blood drain, '_Sinister's _children……you don't mean….?' Words failed him and he realised he did not want an answer. Threnody gave him one anyway; the least desirable answer imaginable.

'Yes,' she said gravely, 'Gambit carries the blood of Sinister in his veins. The Black Womb is his inheritance; and while a child of the Black Womb lives the Garden must prosper.'

* * *

**2063 A.D.**

'Double wow.' Lucas whispered half afraid as he craned his neck to look up into the glooming reaches of the towers heights.

'I know, and check out those coloured rope things - they have names on!'

Shard ran forward to the base of the tower and pointed to one of the thick, glowing cords of rainbow light that twinned like creeping ivy all around the tower. Lucas moved forward almost cautiously and peered at the cord his sister was pointing at. He stepped back swiftly, frightened.

'What is this thing?'

Shard was right, names were flashing through the cords like shoals of fast moving fish following a current. Even as the children watched over two dozen names flew past almost too fast to read and Lucas to catch hold of only a handful.

_Drake Robert + Cecelia Reyes = Inez Drake + Simon Jorgson = Zadie Jorgson 2051A.D._

_Frost Emma…….._

_McCoy Henry…….._

_Howlett James…………_

A hand landing heavily on Lucas' shoulder and turning him physically away from the flow of names jerked Lucas out of his reverie with his heart leaping to his throat in fright.

The old man's jaded red eyes frowned down on him, 'Now pups, this is not for you to see. You not ready for this sort of knowledge yet.' Reaching beyond Lucas the old man Lebeau gently pulled the fascinated Shard from the cords. Taking one of their small hands in his the old man led them back to the Peacock and the fountain.

'You chillen can go where you wan' an' play with whatever you will,' he said tiredly sitting on the rim of the fountain and looking over as the Peacock started hooting evilly on the lawns. 'There be just one rule,' he said with a slight smile.

'What's that?' Shard asked curiously.

The old man's smile grew slightly larger. 'Ask no questions on what you see here,' He said simply, 'This here is the Garden; a billion secrets be hidden in here, every blade of grass and every flower stem got a story behind it.' The red eyes glittered madly, 'but they won' be tellin' no tales an' neither will I.'

'But…!' Lucas exploded in outrage, 'You can't mean that! I saw those names; I know some of those names! Robert Drake, Henry McCoy: they were X-men. They were original X-men!'

The old man gave him a long patient look, 'So what? They be long dead now, pup; dust an' bones alla them.' The smile turned hard and the eyes grew dead, 'Only exist in my chains now; just names and dates now.'

'Chains?' Shard walked over and gently touched the edge of the old man's sleeve, 'What do you mean?'

The old man sighed, 'What I say about questions, chile?'

He snorted sourly before either child could answer and shook his head before pointing back towards the hidden tower.

'Them coloured cords you been gawpin' at be the chains that bind me to my penance chillen; once upon a time I stolt this here Garden from the Devil hisself.' The old man sighed tiredly, 'Cost me ev'rything I once held dear, but I turned the Devil's Garden into a lil' piece o' heaven all the same.'

'And the chains?' Lucas found himself clutching at the old man's other hand as he began to move away from the fountain leading the children out of the Garden. Lebeau's ancient but sharp gaze raked over Lucas for a moment.

'You not a fool pup, you know that not'ing in this life come without a price to pay; won my freedom from the Devil an' cast him outta his Garden, oui, I done that.' The tired red eyes swept over his domain, his secret paradise.

'Still the price was a high one; every mutant that ever born an' live to die, I know their names, I record their lives, an' mourn their passin'.' The old man stopped as if accosted with sudden bone deep weariness, 'You can' kill the devil pup, only replace him; wish someone had been there to tell me that when I was a pup, mebbe then things would have worked out different.'

The old man drew himself together and fixed narrowed his red eyes on Lucas, 'Mark me on this one Bishop: I am the Witness; that is my punishment. The Garden must grow and I must be its caretaker, even if it did cost me my heart and soul in the bargain.'

Lucas stared and said nothing as that frightening red gaze released him finally. He walked with his sister and the old man Lebeau in silence to the elevator doors that would take them away from this most secret of all secrets. All the while Lucas could not help but feel that there was a reason he had been brought here; a reason the old man Lebeau had called himself the 'Witness'. It almost seemed like he wanted Lucas to remember all the nonsense he had just said.

What had he said: _You can' kill the devil pup, only replace him; wish someone had been there to tell me that when I was a pup, mebbe then things would have worked out different. _The old man had sounded so sad but how was Lucas supposed to stop something that had happened years and years before he was even born?

Still wrestling with the incomprehensible mystery that was the old man Lebeau Lucas couldn't help noticing as they passed something strange through the thick shadows of tree branches and trailing moss. He saw a door, huge and metallic, out of place in the organic splendour of the rest of the garden. He frowned and narrowed his eyes for a better look.

Scrawled across those huge ominous doors in black industrial script were perhaps the most unsettling words Lucas would ever read: _**BLACK WOMB LABORATORY.**_


	27. Chapter 27

_A/N: Hello everyone, just a quick note to say thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. I promise I will reply to each of you in the usual manner but as many of you asked questions that are hopefully revealed in this chapter I thought I would wait and post this chapter first. ;)_

* * *

**Chapter Twenty-Six: Deconstruction**

**Outside the Beta-Star facility:**

'You tricked us?' Storm whispered.

Sinister roared with unleashed fury and threw Gambit through the air. The Cajun did nothing, or perhaps was incapable of doing anything, to protect himself from a hard impact with the ground.

Phoenix threw out a telekinetic web, catching the Cajun in mid-air and depositing him safely on to the ground; he slumped to his knees, panting for breath but otherwise unharmed. Sinister stalked towards the thief as the X-men broke out of their stunned paralyse and fanned out into combat formation.

The team might not truly know who was friend or foe but instinct alone made them move to protect the downed man from a being they knew was without an ounce of human compassion. Havok gave his brother one last squeeze to the shoulder.

'For the record, Scottie, I don't really want to kill you; it's mostly just habit.'

Scott Summers could not turn to face his younger sibling as he stood at the apex of the loose line of fanned out X-men; he was acutely aware of being the weakest link, forced to keep his eyes closed lest his powers flare out of his control.

'Just promise we'll talk later, 'Lex.' He said softly as he felt his brother step up by his side in the formation.

He heard Havok's soft chuckle. 'Shit Scott, if you keep that up I might change my mind and kill you anyhow; you know us Summers boys don't talk about our problems.'

Lorna Dane felt the sweat seep down her shoulder blades and crawl down the ridges of her spine; concentrate, she had to concentrate. Under her feet she could feel the tremors building; so close, she was so close and Sinister hadn't figured it out yet.

Gambit braced himself just about upright with his one good arm against the ground and his cards splayed over the dirt still gripped in his hands. He lifted his drooping head, nose bleeding thickly as sweat poured from his brow.

'You lose homme, shoulda never come out where I could see you Essex; you gon pay now.'

Sabretooth eyed Wolverine who crouched low to the ground watching his every move. A sharp smirk lit the larger man's broad features; he'd move when the runt was distracted….and by the looks of it Dane would be serving up one helluva distraction pretty damn soon.

'You are babbling Lebeau; your foolish deceits have only alienated you from the X-men. They will not and cannot save you.' Despite Sinister's words the geneticist did not move in on Gambit. There was an almost wariness to his body language that hinted at his unease.

Gambit snickered wetly, his blood dribbling down in thick runnels onto the ground. A fine tremor ran through his limbs and he seemed unable to get to his feet.

'I don' wan' savin'.' Defiance rang out in every syllable.

Warren Worthington stared only at Gambit's kneeling form, seeing only the damaged arm tucked against his chest, the blood smearing his face and body and the wheezing of the man's breathing. Through the filter of his hatred Archangel saw only prey; prey that could not put up much of a fight. His muscles tensed and his eyes narrowed in anticipation.

Sinister advanced on Gambit finally ignoring the X-men, and focused entirely on the thief that had dared to defy him so openly. Reaching for him, Sinister was once again rebuffed as Phoenix threw up a telekinetic wall to block him.

'Not another step, Sinister.' Phoenix couldn't read anything of use from Gambit's mind except pain and hatred but she wasn't about to turn anyone over to Sinister; especially not someone who had been, up until days ago, a teammate.

A little desperately she pushed deeper with a psi-probe and caught a hint of sorrow in the snarl of the Cajun's thoughts; whatever Gambit was planning he had no ill intent towards any of the team. She could feel that clearly. At the moment that was all Jean Grey-Summers cared about. The rest of it, Gambit's actions and his plans, could be worked out and punishment meted out as necessary once they were all safely home in the mansion.

Tentatively Jean reached out to Gambit with her thoughts but received only an unintelligible tangle of half thoughts, vague intention, and swirling emotion. None of which helped her work out what was going on now; all she knew was that Gambit was planning something.

'Dis is your end, homme; you gon' pay now for ev'ryt'ing you done,' Gambit smiled staring into Sinister's coldly furious eyes through an invisible wall of solid air.

A wracking cough hit the Cajun then and he spat gobs of thick, dark, congealed blood onto the pitted, fire blackened ground; the red eyes burned into Sinister, defiant to the last.

'Did you t'ink I spent the las' six years sittin' on my ass feelin' sorry for myself, homme?' Gambit shook his head savagely, 'Non, I always knew it woul' end dis way; prepared for it me.'

He struggled to pull his legs up under him and crouched ready and taut, 'I'm gon make you pay for what you done; swore it on de Morlock graves, me.'

Archangel hissed, 'Morlocks? What does……….?' he bared his teeth as suspicion coalesced in his mind.

Sinister opened his mouth to demand an explanation also and it was that moment poised on the edge of a precipice of tension, in which Polaris struck. Releasing a roar of suppressed exertion and concentration her powers flared and the hard packed scorched earth beneath all their feet erupted.

'Die you monster!'

Tearing the tiny particles of iron and other metallic minerals from the soil Polaris called her metallic tree once more to her aid, feeding the roots of that monstrous construct under ground through the tunnels she had blasted open in the rock and soil. Those liquid tendrils of metal struck out from the ground as claws of steel, striking into Sinister's exposed back.

The age old geneticist roared in outrage more than pain and his mutable body began to warp and mould around the massive spines protruding from his legs, arms, and torso.

Gambit lunged forward then, flinging his fistful of cards towards Sinister as Phoenix's protective barrier collapsed due to her surprise. At the same time Sabretooth capitalised on Wolverine's momentarily loss of focus and dived forward towards the Cajun.

'Catch punk!' He hissed in a voice lost to hearing even to Wolverine.

Creed stretched forward as the Cajun reached backwards for the small tracking device Sabretooth had extricated from the Sentinel's spine when he ripped its head off. The tracking device, unlike the Sentinel's processing core, was still active and had been the real reason Creed had mutilated the downed Sentinel in the first place.

Gambit's good hand closed around the object as he threw himself at Sinister heedless of any danger. The brace of cards he had thrown split seconds earlier impacted with Sinister's liquefying form and erupted like an explosion in a Clay-mation factory; pieces of Sinister's grey slime body blasted outward in all directions before snapping together again.

'Ahhhhh……hurry!' Polaris cried out as she struggled to keep Sinister pinned on the tines of her magnetic spikes. The toll it took to keep the metal in a fluid state, to better adapt to Sinister's shape-shifting, left her gasping.

Alex Summers jumped back from his brother's side and raised his forearm, open palm glowing white hot and pointed straight at his Scott's head.

'Scott!' Jean whirled on her feet and threw up a protective shield around her blind husband instinctively, even though if she had thought about it she would have remembered that Alex's powers only made Scott's stronger.

'Move Jean; you don't want to get caught in the blast.' Alex snapped at her.

Wolverine, reacting to Sabretooth's movement, launched himself into the air and landed hard on Creed's back, riding him to the ground claws flashing in the wild flaring luminance of Polaris' powers and Gambit's explosions.

Archangel dived bombed towards Gambit; Iceman, cursing the craziness of the situation the whole time, created an ice lasso and wrapped it around his old friend. Warren crashed to the ground yelling for Bobby to let him go.

Gambit came out of his flying leap and landed, cat graceful, on the ends of the writhing spikes of metal that kept Sinister pinned. Glowing like an imp from hell he squatted down on those spikes, a foot balanced on each, and brought his face an inch from Sinister's snarling visage.

He grinned through the blood dripping off his chin and thrust his glowing good hand, still clutching the tracking device, right through the centre of Sinister's forehead, 'Game over Essex.'

It was at that moment that Havok fired on his brother hitting him with superheated and concentrated bands of concentric plasma.

'Shoot Scott – NOW!'

* * *

**Shadow New Orleans: The Dead Man's Gambit Theatre**

Betsy Braddock found her way back to the 'Dead Man's Gambit' theatre eventually. Shoving through the doors to the main lobby she was brought up short by the sweet, comfortable scent of toffee popcorn, soda and that quintessential movie theatre stuffiness that was oddly nostalgic and welcoming.

The interior of the theatre was characteristically Gambit-esque; an oddly charismatic mish-mash of the refined and ornate combined with the battered and down on the heel that nevertheless remained charmingly overdone and just faintly ridiculous.

Brass fixtures were polished to a high shine and yet all that effort only showed off the dents and scratches all the more. The carpet was thick, velvety red, soft enough to sink into in places and in others worn to threads and dotted with holes. The walls were patterned with fleur de lys embossed creamy white papering and large framed movie posters covered all available space; sand filled brass ashtrays stood on pedestals strategically placed throughout the lobby and trails of thin blue smoke rose up from crushed out butts. Signs on the walls extorted visitors to 'please feel free to smoke on the premises' and oversized jangling chandeliers hung from the low ceilings and sent rays of light falling in dancing rainbow prisms to the floor.

Despite herself Betsy felt her lips curve up into a wry smile; there was such a profound sense of Gambit's persona here, something that had been missing out on the streets of his home city. Allowing herself to be curious Betsy walked over to examine the rest of the theatre lobby.

The concessions stand taking up the entire back wall of the foyer was made of mullioned glass and shining brass and offered both the usual fare and some decidedly unusual 'treats'. A prominent selection of cigarettes, cigars and cigarillos sat side by side with M&M's, Hershey bars, and bottles of brandy. Instead of hotdogs one was enticed to try a portion of 'Aunt Emm's' Jambalaya. Decks of cards were also on discount for the enjoyment of the audience during the intermission and almost all the beverages on offer were alcoholic.

Looking around Betsy could almost envision Gambit's wide, sly grin; the joke was on anyone who couldn't see the funny side of all this.

Moving down the corridor towards the screening rooms she noticed that the potted ferns needed watering and the floor had grown decidedly sticky; rather than air-brushing out the imperfections Gambit seemed to embrace the less perfect aspects of reality and enshrine them in loving detail in his mind.

That thought gave Betsy Braddock pause. All her life she had been groomed to a certain expectation of perfection; she could trace her lineage all the way back to King Arthur and Camelot and her twin brother was the protector of the Sceptred Isle of Great Britain, so tasked by Merlin himself. As a woman and as a mutant the former model and spy had always expected perfection from herself in whatever she did. To be merely good enough was not worthy of her; even when she found herself thrust into a role (or even a body) that she had never sought or wanted she tried to become that role (or body) to the very best of her ability.

Looking around now at this lovingly imperfect creation of Gambit's mind she wondered, what did her own mind look like? Did she lose something, some sense of gentle, humble pleasure, in her constant search for perfection? Had she missed the point while trying to iron out all the loose ends and awkward pieces of her own personality?

A sign strung up using a piece of sticky tape to one of the screening room doors brought Betsy up short out of her thoughts. The sigh proclaimed a welcome, written in Gambit's recognisably neat script: _Come on in Betts; enjoy the show._

Well, Betsy shook her thoughts into order as she hesitated outside the door, she had wanted to confront some part of Gambit's psyche had she not? She may as well go in and see what paltry trickery Gambit's psychic remnant had in store for her.

Bracing herself for any number of eventualities the X-man Psylocke pushed open the double doors to the screening room.

* * *

**The Medlab: The Xavier Institute**

Hank McCoy dragged a chair across the floor of the medlab and plopped down on it, curling his toes around the edge of the chair as he crouched on the seat.

'Gambit is related to Sinister?'

Threnody continued to play curiously with the psi-dampener, 'Sinister used his own DNA, including a sample from before his transformation and after, in the initial experimentation. The original Black Womb children were all born of Amanda Mueller's body and Sinister's DNA spliced with samples from other mutants he had encountered.'

Hank frowned, 'I would confidently posit the assertion that Gambit is less than thirty years old. If the Black Womb was active in the 'fifties then Gambit cannot be the direct progeny of Sinister and Amanda Mueller.'

Threnody nodded, 'He is not; all the original Black Womb children were female.' Threnody smiled almost apologetically, 'I read in the notes that Mueller referred to them as her ''Eves in the Garden.''

Hank lifted a hand to pull his glasses from his nose and into his mouth only to realise mid-motion that he was not wearing them. He briefly wondered what he had done with his spectacles and then re-focused on the topic at hand; tapping his fingertips to his lips in lieu of his spectacles.

'Then you are intimating that Gambit is second generation; the child of a Black Womb female?'

Hank rose in agitated fashion from the chair once more and loped over to the other side of the medlab. He called up the data he had been compiling on Gambit's mutation and physiology on one of the computer screens.

'Remarkable. Then, in terms of lineage, Sinister is Gambit's maternal grandfather?'

'Yes,' Threnody shifted in the centre of the bed so she could watch McCoy, 'Sinister disbanded the Black Womb project on the 27th May 1981. The Black Womb Eves had been mostly failures; powerful mutants, many of them Omega powered, but all of them carrying some manner of flaw due to the artificial nature of their conception.'

Hank turned from his study of Gambit's medical details and blinked at Threnody, 'Flaws?'

Threnody nodded, 'Sinister considered Black Womb a failure and Mueller lost all favour because of it. The children were supposed to be the vanguard of the mutant race.' Threnody tapped at the psi-dampener with one long fingernail smiling once again at the play of rainbow colour as it cascaded down the creases in the cloth.

'It was his plan to populate the world with hand-engineered mutants carrying his DNA template. Those mutants would be potential breeding matches with those of the Summers or Grey line. Through the Black Womb children and their progeny Sinister would dictate the direction of Homo Superior evolution.'

'Oh my stars…..' Hank stared at the read outs on his computer with new eyes. His mind leapt ahead of the narrative.

'But it failed.' He whispered almost tripping over his words in his haste to reach the logical conclusion, 'It failed because as highly advanced as a mutant's powers may become, all mutants are at core human with a human's limitations.'

Hank bounded across the lab again to another computer screen. He tapped in commands and studied more readouts as he thought out loud.

'Omega mutants tend to die young, if they emerge at all, because they have not evolved physically or mentally to sufficient level to sustain their powers. Nature is experimenting with those mutations that work and are sustainable and those that are not. That is why there are so many diverse mutations. It is all a race to see what the ultimate direction of Homo Superior mutation will be.'

He turned back to Threnody eyes bright with understanding, 'Sinister was in essence breeding hot house flowers with his Black Womb tinkering; incredible power but without the resilience to sustain that power.'

Threnody nodded, 'Many of the telepaths were severely autistic; capable of reading any mind but lacking the means to interpret and communicate that knowledge, or function independently in the outside world. Sinister ordered most of the telepathic Eves killed when it became apparent they were 'defective' by his standards.'

Hank felt a cold trickle down his spine but could not claim surprise; this was a being who had thought nothing of cloning the apparently dead Jean Grey and ordering the slaughter of innocent mutants for no obviously discernable reason. He shook his head savagely sparing thought and anguish for those poor souls whose life had been so monstrously pointless and whose deaths so callous. Then he pushed onwards; he could not save the dead but what knowledge Threnody could furnish him with might yet save the living.

'You said he killed most of the Eves - but not all?'

Threnody shook her head, 'No; some of the Eves were born with latent or dormant mutations. Sinister planned to use them as breeding stock, and others had low level passive physical mutation with the potential to breed greater powers in their off-spring. Those Eves were allowed to mature to breeding age. They were put to work in the Garden until suitable breeding males were indentified.'

'Star and Garters,' Hank shivered but squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. 'Am I to assume that Gambit's biological mother was one of these Eves?'

Threnody hesitated glancing away and letting her hand drop from the psi-dampener to rest limply in her lap. 'Not exactly Dr McCoy; Gambit was not born until _after_ the closure of the Black Womb project. His mother must have been one of the escapee survivors.'

Hank blinked, 'Survivors?' he had the distinct impression he did not want to know the answer but he was going to hear it anyway.

Threnody nodded, 'Yes Dr McCoy, as I said, Sinister aborted the entire project on the 27th May 1981.'

'The 27th May 1981?' Bile rose in Hank's throat as he recognised the significance of that date. 'Oh my stars and garters; I know that date.' Threnody watched him sympathetically. Hank closed his eyes tightly as he saw the monstrous coil behind Sinister's machinations dance behind his closed lids.

'Scott's birthday; the Black Womb project was terminated on the day Scott Summers was born.'

* * *

**The Dead Man's Gambit Theatre:**

Betsy Braddock stared. Her mouth went dry and the hair on the back of her neck and arms stood up on end.

The auditorium was filled with Marauders. Every seat in the cinema was filled with a duplicate of one of the original Marauders. There were dozens of sneering Sabretooth and cackling Vertigo clones interposed with silent brooding Scalphunters and bored Scramblers to name but a few.

The cinema screening auditorium was similarly furnished to the rest of the movie theatre; red velvet, shining brass and curliqued mouldings dominated, but compared to the audience the décor was of no concern to Psylocke.

She stood at the heights of the descending auditorium by the swinging doors; the warm, cramped scent of popcorn, cream soda, and other confections was almost cloyingly sweet compared to the underlying vile metallic reek of old blood. The curtails covering the obscured movie screen were tattered, scorched, and splattered with liquid stains Betsy did not really want to identify.

One of the Arclight copies was having a popcorn fight with a Riptide clone; their laughter was obscene and grotesque especially when Betsy's eyes adjusted to the dim floor level lighting and she realised that each of the Marauders was drenched in blood and gore.

'Sweet God,' Her whisper was torn from a tight throat and half a dozen Creeds turned to grin at her cruelly.

'Come to join the show, frail?' the asked her in eerie synchronicity.

Psylocke tensed violently but resisted summoning a simulacrum of her psi-blade; this was not real. Nothing here could hurt her unless she allowed it. The Creeds in this auditorium were only figments in a replica of Gambit's thoughts; they were less than thought, less than memory. She need not be afraid.

With that in mind she ignored the jeers and taunts of the other Marauders once they discovered her presence and began to descend towards the tattered curtained stage hiding the cinema screen. She had a feeling that the screen was the key to the whole illusion; this was a movie theatre after all.

She had walked by the rows of seats and was headed towards the three steps leading up to the small stage when a voice stopped her.

'Hey now Betts, down in front, eh?'

Psylocke wheeled around at the sound of Gambit's voice. Yet when she turned all she saw was the empty front row of seats in the auditorium. Beyond that the Marauders continued their rough-house games, behaving like rambunctious children with blood on their faces. Betsy repressed a shudder of revulsion.

There was one velvet upholstered seat in the very centre of the first row marked with a white satin and lace handkerchief over the back and a folded card with the word 'reserved' embossed upon it in gold calligraphy script. Reluctantly Betsy stepped forward and picked up the card.

_Reserved for Lady Elizabeth Braddock; _the card read and Psylocke was not surprised. She looked over her shoulder back at the tattered curtain and hidden screen. There did not seem to be much choice, she would have to take a seat and wait for whatever Gambit had planned to show her if she wanted to gain any clues to the truth.

Reluctantly Psylocke took her seat. She settled stiffly, skin crawling, and acutely aware of the Marauders at her back. She gritted her teeth and clenched her fists in her lap. The houselights went down and the bedraggled curtains swept apart. A voice filled the auditorium as the Marauders fell expectantly silent.

'Femmes and Hommes, welcome to De Dead Man's Gambit; de management hope you enjoy de show.'

A huge onyx black screen filled the stage, a gaping hole of crackling static, larger and deeper than any cinema screen she had ever seen. The static dance began to coalesce into something resembling images as Gambit's voice rose from everywhere and nowhere to fill the auditorium like velvet shadow.

'We have a very special treat for y'all today mes amis; a Director's cut, special edition, screening of the de greatest show on Eart': ''The Life and Crimes of the Traitor Remy Lebeau.''

A boisterous, jeering cheer rose up from the ranks of Marauders and the screen burned into life. Betsy did not even have time to panic as she was sucked, headfirst, straight into that dark, aching vortex upon the stage.

* * *

**Outside the Beta-Star Facility:**

'Shoot Scott – NOW!'

Scott Summers felt the impact of his brother's power hit him dead on and he staggered, wavering on his feet. He forcibly kept his eyes squeezed closed even as he heard Polaris scream against Sinister's struggles and felt the frantic, stunned horror of his wife through their link. Another wave of plasma smashed into him over the sounds of his brother cursing him to take the shot.

Scott Summers reached saturation point; too much power and no means to suppress it. With a cry of his own he opened his eyes and his mutant power was released without restraint.

The blast hit Sinister dead on as the mutated geneticist split his body in two halves in an attempt to slide free of Polaris's liquid spikes of metal. The optic blast of concussive energy punched through Sinister's reforming torso and the broadside of the blast shattered the metal spikes Polaris had already lost control of. Gambit flung himself backward in a messy somersault to avoid being pulverised alongside Sinister.

Mr Sinister screamed as his malleable form was smeared like grease across the debris littered ground in dripping pieces.

Scott staggered backwards, falling to his knees and feeling both Jean's and Alex's arms catch him and lower him to the ground. His head felt empty and aching and his throat was dry. There was burning pain behind his squeezed shut eyes.

Sabretooth managed to break free of his tussle with Wolverine and lunged forward, hairy clawed fist closing around one wriggling, dull grey quicksilver lump of Sinister's flesh.

Polaris collapsed to her knees struggling to breathe and Alex abandoned his brother to go to her. Gambit struggled to his feet as the rest of the X-men grappled to understand what was happening.

Sinister was reforming like hot liquid pulling together or mercury running along the ground. Gambit bit back a series of curses; why wouldn't this homme die or at the least call up a tesseract portal and run the hell away? Forcing his pained limbs to obey him he lurched into motion.

Ungainly and simmering with his own mutagenic energies Gambit launched himself across the ground in a kicking belly crawl, both his working and broken hand reaching for the solidifying Sinister.

'_How does your Garden grow_?' Through gritted teeth he snarled the question at the heart of everything.

Eventually he managed to grapple the liquid flowing streams of Sinister's body and slammed both fists into Sinister's half formed chest. Determined to exact as much damage as he could while he could he ripped charged lumps of liquid matter from Sinister's still forming torso. The savagery, speed, and fury of his actions were reminiscent of Creed's killing lust or Wolverine's berserker rage.

Sinister, gravely injured from Scott's blast, could not mount a defence as Gambit continued to rend him almost literally limb from limb.

'TELL ME! TELL ME HOW YOUR GARDEN GROWS. TELL ME WHY THEY HAD TO DIE YOU FUCKING BASTARD.'

Gambit screamed; that the screaming was in French did not matter. There was no one present who could not understand the sheer primal anguish, the desperate grief soaked madness, that tore its way up from Gambit's throat and swallowed his mind whole. Gouts and gobs of Sinister's flesh flew in the air, sizzling with Gambit's mutant charge popping like pork fat as they burned.

For one blinding moment of pure homicidal magnificence Gambit forgot what his purpose was; he forgot the plan and the scheming. All he could think of was making Sinister pay.

Creed, still grasping the wriggling, independently moving glob of Sinister's flesh in his fist, watched Gambit with something approaching admiration; the punk had finally flipped his lid and Creed for one intended to enjoy every moment of the show.

Lorna in contrast, too exhausted to move, leaned against Alex's side and wept for Gambit. This was not part of the plan but she would not stop him. This pain needed to be released and if Gambit could hurt Sinister in the process all the better for it.

'Goddess, save us.' Storm finally snapped from the mire of her own fears and reacted. Moving without caution she threw herself on Gambit, heedless of the sharp, biting crackle of his powers against her exposed skin, as she wrestled him from Sinister.

'Enough – by the Bright Lady you must stop this!'

Gambit was jolted out of his madness at the sound of Ororo's voice and stopped his crazed attack.

'Non, let me go.' He tried to twist out of her grip as he realised what was happening and that his precious Stormy could ruin everything. Mon dieu, why was she even trying to help him after all she must know about him now? He craned his neck to look at her trying to distil a million words into a mere handful.

'Stormy chere, _please_, you got to let me go!'

'Never,' Storm's eyes flashed lightning and in one word she answered a million more questions he would never dare to ask.

Sinister, no longer under direct attack, began to reform in earnest. He activated a tesseract portal and dragged himself in a column of flowing liquid grey towards that glowing portal of light.

'NO!'

Gambit lunged forward straining against Ororo's grip and Wolverine abandoned Creed to throw one burly arm around the Cajun's chest and pull him back also. Panic surged through Gambit as he realised that everything was going wrong; Essex was escaping! Still Wolverine did not even flinch when in desperation the Cajun bit down hard and sank his teeth mindlessly into the meat of Logan's upper arm tearing like a feral animal trying to escape.

Sabretooth swore savagely as he realised also that the plan was about to go up shit creek without a paddle. He threw himself at the two X-men pinning down the punk. Logan whirled around to fend Creed off and Storm instinctively reared back, trying to pull Gambit with her even as he strained away from her. The distraction of Creed's assault served its purpose and Gambit was able to break free.

He dove forward after Sinister.

'Goddess no!'

Storm raised her hand, taking a split second of thought to summon the swirl of gale winds that would knock Gambit off course and away from Sinister and the pink glowing tesseract. Polaris reacted even faster still; she loosed a magnetic pulse wave that deflected Storm's winds.

Cyclops looked up, seeing with Jean's eyes. In a moment he saw everything with blinding clarity. Sinister grievously wounded, betrayed by the one he thought could not betray him; Gambit half crawling, half lunging after him wild focus in his eyes. He saw Creed actually trying to avoid contact with Wolverine instead of full out combat, something strange clutched in his clawed fist.

More that that however Cyclops realised that he had a near perfect shot at Sinister's vulnerable back as the hated man seeped towards the portal. The shot would cut off Gambit's forward motion preventing him from going after Sinister through the portal which was clearly his intent, but more than that, with this one shot they could all be free of the madman scientist once and for all.

'Scott no!'

Alex moved then reading the intent in Cyclops opening eyes; diving across the gap between Lorna, who was keeping Storm, Archangel, and Iceman from stopping Gambit, Alex leapt into Cyclops line of sight.

'Alex!' Even though he knew he couldn't hurt Alex with an optic blast anymore than Alex's powers could hurt him, Scott still instinctively squeezed closed his eyes and turned his head to the side. Havok dropped to his knees before Cyclops and clasped his brother's shoulders.

'Blast the bastard now and we lose any chance of finding the Garden. Gambit's right; vengeance is best served cold and on the end of a scalpel.'

'What? What are you talking about?' Jean demanded for herself and her husband.

Phoenix had found herself torn in the middle of the fight; unable to take action when it mattered most. There had been too many people needing her at once and too much happening that she did not understand. Later she would regret her hesitance and curse herself a fool for it. Right now however there was still too much happening and far too little time to react.

The tesseract portal yawned open wide looking like nothing so much as a huge bright red mouth filled with crackling pinkish white energy. In seconds the tear in space and time would close; in seconds Sinister's escape root would be gone.

Fortunately for the mad scientist he did not need seconds.

Sinister lurched towards the portal oozing through in a semi-solid jellied mess. At the last instance Gambit caught hold of one of the geneticist's cape tassels and dived without hesitation into the tesseract after the fleeing Sinister.

Storm screamed wordlessly, as the Heaven's roared with thunder. She ran forward towards the rapidly closing iris of the portal. The portal sealed; Sinister and Gambit were simply gone.

* * *

**The Dead Man's Gambit Movie Theatre:**

The Marauders grinned and laughed as they watched the show playing out before them. The Sabretooths laughed at the blood and the Scramblers threw popcorn at the screen; a thousand sneers and jeers were hurled at the screen by the enraptured audience. Hell they hadn't had this much fun since Rogue had run the Massacre gauntlet. The Marauder's find themselves hoping that Psylocke is a screamer like the Mississippi harpy.

Within the confines of the screen a nightmare runs its course.

_Betsy Braddock can't see, can't hear, can't smell or taste anything except the screams and the blood and the stink of piss and vomit and things that should never be seen or smelt. _

_She's running so fast that it feels like she should be able to run clean out her body. Even lil' Sarah in her arms don't feel that heavy; she can't even feel her spiky spine bones digging into her flesh. _

_Betsy knows these tunnels in and out, up and down already, but now she's lost. No amount of reconnaissance could prepare her for this. There is no map for this carnage. There is no escape. _

_There are bodies everywhere….how can there be so many? It's like the walls are bleeding and the ground is flooded with blood. _

_She runs blind because she can't stop; Creed sliced her up but good and she knows it. She knows that the blood that splashes down around her like hot rain is as much hers as anyone's. If she stops she dies; if she dies, Sarah dies. _

'Let the brat die; little freak!' In the auditorium Scrambler throws a whole bag of popcorn at the screen.

'Get to the good part!' Vertigo hollers, giggling obscenely.

'Tsk, who is this purple haired pretender?' Arclight sneers, 'At least Rogue put up a fight. Damn it I paid good money for this show.'

Inside the screen Psylocke can do nothing but relive Gambit's personal hell. The pain is not hers, the thoughts alien to her, but with every moment, every step she takes in his memories, they become her and she becomes them.

_There are so many dead already; how can there be so many dead? How could it all happen so fast? _

_Psylocke's never been hurt so bad before, there are bits of her insides sliding free of torn flesh, but she can't feel it; she can't feel anything. Everywhere is screaming red and black and there's fire and smoke all over. The sound of crying is real loud; it rises and falls in the heavy air like something alive. It's reaching for her, chasing her with every howl and moan._

_Betsy presses Sarah's head against her shoulder as she runs. She wants to protect the child from the sights of hell all around; stupid really because even the blind could see this horror. _

_Her eyes are wide and even in the corners she sees the death, the bits and pieces, and she doesn't know what they are……then like a jig-saw puzzle, or an Escher painting…..she sees it all at once. _

_She sees the bodies….she sees the people whose names she wishes to God that didn't remember. She sees their eyes; they are looking at her and they all look so surprised. _

_They don't know why they died and Psylocke has no answers for them. There are no answers. There is only this hell in all the world. _

_Blood and shit and darkness and the sounds of children screaming and screaming and screaming; the whole world is this tunnel. The whole world is blood and stink and screams. _

_Betsy runs and she bleeds. The screams and the stink fill her up as her own blood hits the floor to run like a river. She can barely feel Sarah in her arms and it's real hard to know if she's even running still or if she's dead already. _

_Still it doesn't stop; the screaming goes on and on. The blood is everywhere. She is blind and deaf but she can still feel the death and the destruction and the horror; she becomes the horror. There is only this chaos left. _

'Oh please - get over it already!' Scrambler grabs the soda cup from Prism's hands and hurls it in disgust at the screen.

'Fuck, when's Lebeau going to show something new? I mean how many more schmucks are going to come in here and do this shtick? The Massacre was years ago; no one gives a fuck anymore!'

'I still say the Mississippi bitch was more fun than this British bint.' Arclight turned to one of the taciturn Scalphunters. Within and upon the screen the massacre continues and Psylocke remains trapped within the horror of it all.

_Psylocke becomes nothing more than an extension of the death, the horror, the screaming, and the destruction; everywhere she can feel the Morlocks die. With every step she takes another falls; she runs away and the screaming chases at her heels. _

_The tunnel opens up, suddenly, and the world explodes into noise and sight and sound that isn't screaming and stink and blood. _

_Psylocke hears voices rise in fright. The voices of 'upworlders' as the Morlocks call them. A light rushes up towards her; something huge headed straight for her. A siren screams and the crunching metallic screech of a sub-way train's breaks shrieks through the air. She is on the subway tracks and the train is bearing down._

_Sarah stirs in her arms and she remembers that she can't die yet; not until the petite is safe. So many dead and she could only grab one. She has to save just this one little life. _

_She sees the ledge of the subway platform and throws Sarah onto it as the air churns and the brilliant light keeps coming. One little life; one pained, miserable life is all she could snatch from the hell of the tunnels. Yet if lil' Sarah lives to know love and laughter then it was not a failure. _

_Mon dieu, let her have saved just one; let this child know joy and spare her all pain. _

_The light is blinding but she smiles into it; the petite is safe on the platform and the roar of the train is so close. The light is beautiful; the angels are coming for vengeance. The angels of mercy have come to claim the Morlocks and take them to the Kingdom of heaven._

_The light and the wind and the rushing feeling of something huge and unstoppable bearing down on her, fills the world; she drops to her knees and opens her arms wide, welcoming her death. _

_The light becomes darkness and the screaming starts again; she falls to hell once more as hands claw at her body. She does not even know it as strangers' wrench her away from the train seconds before it hits. _

_It is finally over, but the horror will remain indelibly burned into her soul. _

Inside the auditorium the curtain falls closed again hiding the obsidian screen as it fades into dormancy. The Marauders erupts into wild and uproarious applause. The show might be getting a little old but they will never get tired of the sick terror that leeches out of the screen. Cat-calls and demands for encores ring out from the jeering Marauders as Betsy Braddock collapses to her knees, soaked in sweat and tasting blood and vomit on her tongue, onto the sticky auditorium floor before the stage.

'Encore! But this time, do it with feeling bitch!' Scrambler finds yet more litter to fling at her. Vertigo snickers behind her hand and one of the Scalphunter's shakes his head in silent disgust.

A lean, trench coated man slips silkily around the curtain as the Marauders continue their heckling. The man drops down cat like and graceful off the stage and saunters silently to Betsy's side. He places one hand solicitously on her shoulder and crouches down beside the shivering Ninja.

Psylocke looks up into a pair of hooded red on black eyes. The Remy shade smiles at her humourlessly but his voice is oddly sympathetic as he asks of her one question.

'So tell me, Betts, did you enjoy de show?'


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter Twenty-Seven: Declaration**

**The Past: The X-Maison**

A time not now but not so long ago………

It was a sweetly warm and sultry night as Charles Francis Xavier floated over the midnight grasses of his estate's back lawns. He was headed towards the small, neatly kept cemetery hedged by a small orchard that was at the heart of both his Dream and all his nightmares.

It was only as he hovered in his chair close to one of the marble benches that he picked out with his less than exemplary night vision the rangy figure lying supine across the stone slab, an open liquor bottle loosely clasped in one hand.

Charles Xavier frowned; he had hoped for solitude and found instead another troubled soul he was ill-equipped this night to help; though one could question if he could truly help anyone. Especially when faced with the carefully tended graves before him.

'Bon nuit mon professeur,' the laconic greeting was a murmur on the warm night air.

'Gambit,' Xavier nodded to the man as one red eye peered at him through the gloom; Charles swiftly took in the young man's disreputable appearance, suit jacket open, shirt un-tucked and unbuttoned at the throat, lipstick on his collar and liquor bottle by his hip.

The X-men patriarch arched an eyebrow and queried dryly. 'You do remember that Cyclops has scheduled a seven AM Danger Room session for the morning?'

Gambit grinned lazily at him waving his hand in an airy gesture, 'Oui monsieur, I be dere wit' bells on.'

the other man promised and there was no point in Gambit admitting that he had in fact forgotten the training session; both men already knew that and they both knew that Gambit had staggered through other Danger Room sessions similarly inebriated in the past.

'Lucid and coherent would be preferable.' Xavier pointed out poker faced and Gambit laughed. Charles remained stern in appearance but Gambit's cavalier panache did engender the tiniest flicker of grudging amusement from the older man. Charles still remembered, just barely, what it was to be young, reckless, and foot loose after all.

'Don be askin' for miracles, mon ami; dere be some dat would say dat Gambit never been all dat coherent, non?' the younger man beamed at Charles, 'Don't you worry none professeur, Gambit can do a Danger Room session drunk or sober equ'lly well.'

'Indeed,' Charles couldn't completely smooth out the faint hint of humour in his words, 'Out of interest, however, are you aware of your tendency to refer to yourself in the third person while intoxicated?'

Charles watched much more amused now, as Gambit reviewed his last words. The much younger man blinked at him in surprise. 'Non,' he said after a handful of seconds, 'I don t'ink anybody ever bothered to tell me dat befor'.' Gambit sat up abruptly swinging his legs around so both feet were in the grass, 'Dat's really weird.'

Xavier laughed out loud then partly motivated by the totally perplexed look that crossed Gambit's features as he realised his odd, and usually deeply buried, linguistic tic. The younger man mock glared at Charles in response to the laughter but then his own smile broke free; in Charles experience Gambit had never minded being the butt of a joke.

'So homme what bring you out at dis time o' night?' the younger man asked mildly after a short pause.

The smile left Charles Xavier's face as his thoughts were pushed back to his previous preoccupation. Gambit was perceptive enough to be instantly on alert as Charles grew sombre. With one hand the older man gestured to the rows of tombs in the small, neat, cemetery.

'I found I could not sleep and thought I would come and pay my respects.'

Remy thought about this for a second and nodded once, 'You wan' me to leave you in peace den, or should I offer you my brandy?' he brandished the bottle.

Xavier was mildly touched, both my Gambit's easy acceptance of his motives and by the tacit understanding of the deeper troubles plaguing his mind. Regardless he did not show that reaction in his expression or words; it was not his nature to do so.

'No thank you, I do not enjoy losing my inhibitions or my faculties.' He said sternly, 'And there will come a time, Mr Lebeau, when you will regret your own methods of relieving stress.'

Unsurprisingly Gambit merely grinned hugely at him, his luminous eyes glinting in the darkness.

'Ah mon professeur, you labourin' under a misassumption, non?' He said archly. 'I ain't never had any inhibitions or faculties to begin wit, so can' be losin' dem,' he arched an aristocratic brow, 'an you also forgettin' dat I be de original libertine, oui? Don' have stress me, as my 'ead full of air an' my heart's shallow as a puddle.'

Charles Xavier steepled his fingers against his lips as he studied one of his more _interesting_ students; individually Charles valued each and every person who came to him and pledged their youth, vigour, and even their lives to his cause, but few proved to be the puzzle that Gambit was. Charles had yet to entirely work out to his satisfaction if Gambit was deliberately contradictory as a smokescreen or if it was merely his nature to be damned contrary.

'Why do you do this to yourself, Remy?' he asked finally.

He had found, through extensive and pain-staking work building up some sort of rapport with the man over the last two years that Remy responded to the use of his given name in unusual fashion. When Charles spoke the other man's given name it had become a sort of short hand code. Under those circumstances the young mutant stopped pretending to be, as he put it, 'thieving white trash' and allowed the mind at play underneath his facade to show through. It had taken Charles a long time to break through his defences to that part of his character.

'Do what Charles?' Remy cocked his head to the side, using Charles own given name deliberately and markedly. Despite his cheerful inebriation Xavier could already feel the pinch of his shields closing around his mind that little bit tighter. Shaking his head Charles raised a placating hand.

'Peace Remy; I was just curious why you persist in presenting only the most superficial aspects of your personality to the rest of the team.' He smiled slightly hoping to put the young man at ease, 'If it was not for a shared love of chess I think you would have me convinced as well that you have nothing going on inside your head but wine, women, and wagering.'

Remy took a decidedly unhealthy (in Charles' opinion) swig from his bottle of brandy and grinned through the liquor's burn, 'An' _I_ be curious, Charles, why it be dat you _persist_ in askin' questions you already know de answer to, eh?'

Charles was not offended by the sharpness of the tone or the brusque words. Six or seven months ago he would have been, but he had since discovered that the mind underneath Gambit's façade was naturally acerbic. It was a small victory for Charles when Gambit had made that adjustment and allowed him to see this side of him; Remy was usually too afraid of other people to accord them the trust respect required.

Charles nodded his head and smiled dryly in response to the shrewd rebuttal, 'Perhaps I am hoping that one day you will give me the answer I suspect I already know.' He returned fire and waited for the answering sally.

This was the way of their conversations; Remy Lebeau gave nothing away for free, but if Charles could out-manoeuvre him into some kind of admission Gambit usually capitulated with grace.

Gambit smiled at him, 'Dat don' seem much to be lookin' forward to, eh?' He pointed out with circuitous cleverness, 'Seem to me dat it be o' more value to you dat I give you an' answer you don' already know, oui?' the young man winked at him irreverently, 'How else a homme like you gon learn if'n you only hear de answers you wan' hear?'

Charles allowed a small smile to escape him and inclined his head in acknowledgement of the successful turnabout, 'Bravo; I think you may even be getting better at evading the issue.'

Gambit saluted him with the bottle, 'Merci monsieur,' He smiled slyly giving Charles a pointed look, 'I've been takin' lessons from a good teacher.'

Charles refused to take the bait and simply affixed a mildly curious expression to his face, 'Really? And who might that be? I would be very interested in meeting that individual.'

Gambit's grin grew wider, eyes twinkling. Charles studied him covertly as they both fell into silence.

Remy Lebeau was in some ways one of Charles success stories. A man who had chosen to reform and dedicate himself to Charles' Dream instead of following a much darker path; on the other hand however Charles had been unable to convince Gambit to admit to, and face the consequences of, his time in Sinister's service. Until Remy Lebeau could do that there would always be a question mark over his future. Secrets existed to be exploited after all, and Sinister was perfectly placed to do just that.

For a long moment the two very different men simply looked at one another in silence over a philosophic divide Charles had yet to find a way to bridge. Then Gambit broke that quiet, understated, battle of wills and conceded defeat without actually giving away any ground in their silent argument. He let his gaze skim over the graves.

'You come out 'ere to spend time wit' de dead often, mon ami?' he asked in a blunt attempt at deflection.

Charles was not perturbed. 'Only when I can't sleep,' He replied simply.

Gambit did not need to know that this was something he had never openly admitted to before. Although he suspected Jean and Scott were aware of his nocturnal visitations to the tombs of his victims – and really what were these people buried here but victims of his own hubris?

Gambit cast a slanted sideways look his way, 'Pretty morbid homme; you never t'ink o' takin' a pill – or hell, neckin' some brandy?' he flourished the bottle once more.

Charles arched an eyebrow. There were few people in the mansion who would speak to him in such a manner. It still took a moment for Charles to remind himself not be offended. 'Transitory solutions do not solve deep rooted problems, Gambit. You of all people should know that.' He could not resist adding pointedly

Red eyes snapped to him the return barb hitting home, '_All_ t'ings are transitory mon ami,' the words bit through the warm night and Gambit jerked a thumb towards the tombs, 'Fuck, even deat' seems to be temporary for most o' de folks here.'

'You are wrong.' Charles frowned as a waft of the same nagging doubts that had kept him from sleep resurfaced at the unwitting reminder. Not sure why he did it he beckoned the young mutant to follow him, 'Come with me Remy.'

It was not a request but an order and Gambit recognised this instantly. He rose from the bench with easy but wobbly grace, liquor bottle clasped in his loose fist. Charles started his hover-chair onwards and floated easily through the pathway between tombs until he reached the one he wanted.

They came to a stop before the one grave marker, out of them all, that was the least well maintained. Charles could not clearly make out the lettering in the dark, but as he knew precisely what it said he did not worry. He knew that Gambit's excellent night vision would pick out the name without difficulty.

'Jean Grey?' the younger man frowned at him, 'What you been takin', homme? De femme's snuggled up at de boathouse wit' Scottie even now.'

Gambit shook his head sharply and curled his lip derisively, 'She's de worst o' de lot of you when it comes to makin' a mockery o' death. She's practically got a revolving door set int' heaven jus' for her, way I hear tell.'

'Perhaps,' Charles said gravely, 'But it does not matter.'

He looked at Gambit keenly and the other man, perhaps intuiting something in his expression, obediently settled onto the grass by his hover-chair like a small child waiting for story time. Gambit crossed his legs and cupped his chin in his hands, elbows braced on his knees. The pose was almost comical but Charles was not in the mood right now to be amused.

'It does not matter if Jean rose from the dead,' Charles began sharply, 'what matters is that the woman I taught, the woman whose gifts I tried to nurture as a child, died trying to follow the edicts I established.' He gestured with one hand sharply to encompass all the plots in the small cemetery.

'Everyone in this cemetery died because they valued my word over their own lives. That some found a way to cheat death and live again does not absolve me from responsibility for those deaths in the first place.'

He paused and found himself under intense scrutiny from the man sitting on the ground beside him; 'Go on homme,' Gambit said very levelly. Charles nodded; Gambit said very little of value most of the time, but he was a very good listener.

'I come out here Remy when I cannot escape the fact that I am, in almost every way, a monstrously selfish and hypocritical man.' He admitted quietly.

He glanced at the young mutant and Gambit's red eyes simply watched him with the inscrutable patience of a cat. Thanks to the other man's shields Charles had no idea what Gambit was thinking or if he was even listening to him; Gambit's expression gave nothing away. It was strangely liberating.

'I preach unity, equality, and peace, but I teach children how to go to war. I have set myself up as a leader but it is my followers who bleed for the Dream. Why is it, I wonder, that no mutant child who passes through this house has ever gone on to live a purely peaceful life among the humans?'

Charles closed his eyes and rubbed at the lids with his fingertips. It was nights like this that he felt he could hear Magnus laughing at him. Was he really a fool to keep believing the Dream was worth the pain? Remy was still watching him when he re-opened his eyes but after a moment more of silence the younger man quirked a brow curiously.

'You expectin' an' answer from _me_, homme?' he asked with the sly, rather ruthless humour he usually kept hidden from the team. ''Cuz I'm t'inkin' _you_ already got one o' your own.' The younger man added adroitly.

Charles nodded once again. He wondered at himself and why he was making this confession to _Gambit_ of all people; still he made it all the same. 'I put my Dream above the lives of my students and teach them to do the same; it is only on nights like this that I can admit the truth to myself.'

'What truth is dat?'

The voice was keen but also neutral. The young man at his feet managed to portray just the right mixture of interest and disinterest. If Charles chose to continue Gambit would listen, if he chose to leave now without finishing Gambit would not care all that much. In so doing he made himself the perfect confidante. It truly was a remarkable skill. Once again a stirring of frustration rose in Charles; if he could just break through that last barrier of mistrust Gambit had erected against him – if he could just convince Gambit to confess to, and face, his past – then there was so much Charles could do with a man of Gambit's unique interpersonal skills.

Charles sighed in irritation but released it. His student's had to learn at their own pace. If Charles pushed too hard he might just push Gambit right back into Sinister's waiting arms. He decided to award Gambit a confession in the hopes of receiving one in return.

'The truth is that as much as the guilt haunts me, as much as the lost lives of these children buried here is a mark of shame upon my soul, none of it truly matters.' He looked Gambit straight in the eyes.

'Man makes God in his own image Remy. Magnus told me that and it is one of the few things with which I have never found sufficient argument against. I still believe I am right. I will be right even if all my students lie dead at my feet and my dream is but ashes on the wind. I will always be right because the Dream is everything.'

He waited for the revulsion, shock, or even outrage to flood through the younger man's mind and expression and realised swiftly that he would have a long wait. Laconically, after some moments, Gambit raised his bottle in a sly salute, 'D'accord, mon ami; dat _is_ pretty selfish.'

To Charles chagrin the young mutant grinned at him then, brightly amused. He clambered to his feet and brushed his pants off without looking at Charles.

'G'night m'sieur, don' stay up too late now,' Gambit chided him cheerfully as if Charles' last few words had never been spoken, 'Mon Capitan Cyclops got a trainin' session planned for de mornin' after all.' The young man added impishly.

Charles simply watched as Gambit made his nonchalant but slightly unsteady way back through the row of graves.

'Gambit?'

The other man stopped, turned around, and smiled lazily, 'Don worry mon professeur, your secret safe wit' me.' he answered the question Charles had yet to voice. The professor arched a brow inquisitively.

Gambit shrugged loose limbed and laughed dismissively in answer, 'Don' come as any surprise to me, eh? Had you pegged from de momen' I met you.'

Gambit's smile remained bright and vacuous but the hard light in his eyes was anything but asinine. 'De kiddies up at de maison don need to know you be as human, an' corrupt, as de rest o' us though; break dere damn fool hearts, oui?'

Charles nodded and decided that the time was right to tell Gambit what he had known from the moment he had pierced the man's shields a few months after he had first joined the team; a time when he had been in the medlab with a concussion and unable to defend himself from a psi-probe.

Calmly he met the younger man's eyes. 'I know about Sinister, Gambit.'

Gambit did not even flinch; Charles wasn't sure if it was the alcohol or if Gambit had already guessed. The slow smile that crept up over his young face was answer enough however; Gambit had known perhaps since the moment Charles had given into temptation and violated his mind.

'I know you know homme,' the young mutant confirmed easily expression calm. There was no recrimination in his eyes or voice as he shrugged casually.

'You'd have to be a fool not to try an' get at my secrets befor' lettin' a t'ief an' crook live wit' de res' o' your precious students. Whatever else you be, homme, you ain't a fool.' He winked, smirk returning, 'It's not like lil' ole me could keep secrets from de ''World's Greatest Telepath'' anyhow, oui?'

Xavier nodded; Gambit's reaction confirmed much of his hypothesis regarding the man's real character. Still he wanted to hear the truth, just once, from the man's own lips.

'And yet you stayed? Even knowing that I could expose your secret to Rogue…..or even _Ororo _at any time?' Charles wondered if he would finally get the only answer from Gambit that he was so far lacking; that last elusive piece of the puzzle, the reason why he stayed here when he did not believe in anything at all.

'Do you care so little for your future Gambit? You cannot tell me that your past means nothing to you. I have seen the theatre, and the projectionist room beyond; I have conversed with your watchman. I know that you suffer for what happened to the Morlocks. I know that you are looking for a purpose and a reason to live.'

The young man smiled beatifically at him; Charles fancied that holy martyrs at the stake must have smiled like this as the flaming torches touched the wood faggots at their feet.

'I know my future homme; decided it de moment I _chose_ to stay on here.' He pointed past Charles' shoulder to the shadows of the graveyard.

'See dat apple tree homme, dat's my spot.' Charles dutifully looked in the indicated direction even though the darkness occluded his vision and blotted the tree from view. Gambit continued talking. 'Dat's where you gon be buryin' me, when my day comes_. _I'm gon die for your dream, Charles Xavier, and bury my past wit' my moulderin' ole bones.'

Charles looked back at Gambit grimly but did not say a word; the other man nodded, understanding his silence for what it truly was: consent.

'You right Charles; dere is no God an' dere sure as hell ain't no redemption.' An expression of bitterness danced over the young man's face before it was banished behind a smile that was more grimace than anything else.

'Dere is no God,' he repeated in an undertone, 'but de Devil got my number already.' The red eyes were calm and remote as he looked at Charles, 'I only got two choices lef'; your way, which'll prob'ly kill me, or _his_ way which be so much worse den death ever could be.'

For a moment after that there was just silence and the faint scent of rain on the balmy late summer breeze.

'Thank you Remy.' Charles said finally. He would not demean the moment by claiming he did not want the man's life if it came to it.

The truth was he would sacrifice Jean, Scott, Henry, Robert and Warren, and all the others, all of whom he cared for far more than Remy, to see his Dream become reality. He might live in hope that it would not come to it, but every time these young, healthy, gifted people left the mansion to fight his battles for him Charles could hold them back, he could say no, that enough blood had been spilt for nothing more than a fantasy, and every time he said nothing and let them go.

He did not want any of them to die, but he would allow it to happen if it brought the Dream one step closer to reality.

Gambit watched him with an expression that said very clearly that he knew that his life was nothing more than chaff to the mill of Charles' Dream and that he accepted that fact without rancour.

'Don' thank me homme,' he smiled caustically and sloshed the liquor in the bottle he held aloft in ironic salute, 'Weep for me instead.'

* * *

**The Present: Somewhere else**

Remy Lebeau opened his eyes and blinked up at the painful fluorescent lighting shining down on him from the ceiling. The air he sampled tentatively through his nose was dull, recycled, and contained the sharp tang of disinfectant and chemicals reminiscent of hospitals, secure wards, and laboratories.

'Oh fuck.'

Gambit was completely surprised that when he tried to surge upright he actually managed to do so; he was not restrained in anyway. In fact he was in a real bed, not a cold metal operating table, and he realised, he didn't feel all that bad all things considered.

After a brief struggle with the thin white bed sheet and soft wool comforter that ended up with Gambit falling out of the bed and onto his hands and knees in an undignified tangle, he took a moment to assess his surroundings.

He was in a small square room. The bed was the most significant piece of furniture in the room and the walls were white pebble tiled with a shiny, non stick linoleum floor. There was a soft padded chair and a wardrobe keeping the bed company. A white ceramic sink was mounted to the wall and the whole room reminded Gambit of what he imagined mental institutions should look like.

'Well don' dis just beat all?' he mused aloud slowly getting to his feet and curiously examining the clothes he found himself in.

The body armour that clung to his skin didn't feel like Kevlar mesh or any synthetics he had ever encountered. It was an interesting shade of colourless darkness that was not as conspicuous as pure black or as dull as grey. In fact it seemed to shift in shade and tint as he moved; like the exact texture and quality of shadow woven into fabric. It was as light as a caress and more durable than even the Shi-ar fabricator could cough up. It also fitted like a dream; offering just the right amount of protection while showing off his best features the way they deserved.

Gambit's inner Peacock started doing cartwheels of pure joy. It had been ages since he'd caught a glimpse of himself and _liked_ what he saw. The only adornment to the otherwise serviceable and sensibly understated attire was the red diamond motif in the very centre of his chest and the smaller diamond pattern running in a discrete dull red line down his arms and outer thighs. Gambit knew the sight of Essex's insignia on his person should fill him with rage and disgust and it did, truly, it was just that well……..well _damn_, this gear was just so cool.

'Tres bien,' he muttered despite himself, 'Tres, tres bien.'

He decided to ignore the disturbing thought that Essex had dressed him up like a doll while he was unconscious and focus on the fact that the new threads were bon indeed. After all why look a gift horse in the mouth? He'd kept wearing Essex's old gear even after he joined the X-men and it wasn't like clothes really defined the man, right? He'd been mighty sick of magenta and black that was for damn sure and lord only knew he couldn't buy or steal body armour that worked as well as Essex's custom stuff.

So maybe he was on morally shaky ground wearing Essex's diamond, but morality didn't keep a body breathing; hi-tech body armour _did_.

Something curious caught his eye and he moved cautiously over to the wardrobe. Sliding open the mirror panelled door he sucked in a breath of pure appreciation when he saw the gorgeous dark brown trench coat hanging inside. He pulled the coat out and laid it open across the bed to be thoroughly examined.

Saints be praised; the deep red lining of the coat was faceted with dozens of hidden pockets and secret compartments just like his own trench coat. When he dug his fingers into all the secret places he found decks of cards, lock picks, wads of emergency cash in various currencies and other useful pieces of kit that he usually carted around in his old coat. Mon dieu, there was even a pack of smokes and his bo staff, retracted to its smallest length, in its usual hidey hole. Hell if it wasn't for the lining and the fact that this coat was actually clean, he'd think it was his.

Even though he knew it was probably not a good idea Gambit couldn't resist slipping on the trench coat over the new battle gear.

'Ah oui, now _this_ is style.'

He indulged in a moment of preening in front of the mirrors set into the doors of the wardrobe. It was only after he'd thoroughly appreciated the coat from all angles that he even realised that there was not a single unsightly bruise or lacerations anywhere on his body or face. He frowned.

'Well dat ain't right,' he peered into the mirror leaning forward and tentatively touching fingers to his face. 'Know for a fact dat I should look like road kill, me.'

Well, wasn't this a mystery? Gambit opened the wardrobe again and pulled out the metal toed boots and the half-fingered gloves he'd spied in there. He pulled them on to complete his look and scraped a hand through his hair to get his bangs out of his eyes. He plunked down onto the edge of the bed to consider things.

The way he figured it he was either, dead and experiencing a really surreal after life, or alternatively, he was in a strange insane asylum where the wardens liked the inmates to look really good in high grade body armour.

Now whereas either of these scenarios had scope for further contemplation Remy Lebeau suspected that in actual fact he was in one of Essex' labs and all this was a less than suitable attempt to prove once and for all that Sinister owned him mind, body, and soul.

Gambit curled his lip, 'Gon take more den pretty clothes an' a job o' rapid healin' to do dat.'

Jumping up from the bed he popped one of the cigarettes, unlit, into his mouth. Of course he checked first to make sure, as best he could, that the cigarette was just a regular old invitation to lung cancer and not a convoluted means of mind control that Sinister had come up with. Once he was certain that Essex probably wasn't planning to control him via his nicotine addiction (though the homme could do worse than try that trick) he lit the smoke and tried to open the door to his little white room.

'Okay, don know whether to be insulted dat de door's not even locked or not.' He murmured as he stepped out into a sterile, ugly, corridor that was so generically 'secret underground lab' in décor it was not even worth detailing.

'Okey-dokey den,' he looked left and right for hidden Marauders or some other form of evil lackey. The sweep came up negative; he was starting to feel a little unloved. 'Well guess I'm gon have to give mysel' de grand tour, non?'

He set off in a random direction down the corridor. His booted feet making no sound over the shiny metal flooring; he traced his fingertips over the walls and smiled at the trails of pinkish light that followed the path of his fingers.

Fifteen minutes later and once Gambit was on his second cigarette he gave up poking around the nooks and crannies of the lab and stumbled on Essex inside a large chamber filled with machines and devices he had no words for and didn't want to know about to begin with.

'Ah Lebeau I trust the attire I designed for you meets with your approval?' The scientist did not even bother to turn to face Gambit but Remy wasn't offended. No, his attention was mostly taken up with the room.

'Oui, c'est bon; merci monsieur Essex,' He murmured absently not really listening to his own words.

His eyes tracked over every contour of the chamber, from the raised dais Essex stood upon facing a bank of screens, to the looming, beeping machinery straight out of a Sci-fi movie and the sulphur orange neon cords of light that criss-crossed over the ceiling. Without even realising he did so Gambit came to stand beside Essex.

'Dis room is diff'rent from dat lab in St Louis.' He squinted at the cables and cords of light trying to pick out the names written across them in the distance. 'De rope t'ings be de same though.' He smirked humourlessly, 'Guess blowin' up dat ot'er lab din't do much harm to you at all, eh?'

Essex was focused on an incomprehensible series of squiggles, lines, and binary code scrawling down one of his screens. 'Please; I would not be so reckless as to hold the X-men anywhere containing data of value. I have noted that Xavier has indoctrinated all his followers with a woeful disregard for the property of others.'

Gambit snickered, 'Oui; took me a while to realise dat de X-men don' see a mission as a success lest dey leave some buildin' or other in flames or vaporised.' He paused a moment; why in hell was he joking with Essex of all people? There was something really, really wrong here.

'Quite,' Sinister gestured without looking at Gambit, 'turn on the screen to your right and read out to me the data that appear.'

'D'accord.' Remy flipped on the screen and winced at the lines of gibberish that spilled down the screen as he did so. 'You jus' wan' recital, non? Don' got to understan' dis shit, right?'

'I merely require you to repeat what you see; eventually I will require you to be versed in the fundamentals of all my research, but for now it is not necessary.'

Distantly warning bells rang in the hinterlands of Gambit's brain. Oui, there was something wrong with this picture. He felt sure that he should not be happy at all with what Essex just said and the less than subtle implications therein. It was just that, well, he couldn't drum up the wherewithal to care right now. For the first time in months he felt calm and at ease in his own head. It was a relief to do without any of the angst, guilt, and fear that had gnawed at him for so long.

He began to read aloud what he saw on the screen to the best of his ability. Sacre dieu he could read in Shi-ar better than he could read this stuff.

'So homme you gon tell me what you gon an' done to my head or do we got to play twenty questions?' he asked once he'd finished his recital and turned the screen back off. He followed dutifully at Essex's heels as the man moved around his control centre.

'What makes you believe I have done anything to you?'

Essex moved over to a specimen cabinet and examined a series of disturbing look surgical tools before moving on to run one of the thinner glowing cables through his hands.

'Use this tablet to record the data that appears in this data strand.' He commanded pushing a small palm sized computer screen, much like a palm pilot, into Gambit's hands.

Gambit frowned as he tried to take down as much of the DNA chain data as he could, watching it run like blood through the cable. 'What makes me t'ink you messed wit' me?' he asked dryly.

'What you mean ot'er den de fact dat I'm standin' here obeyin' you when what I really wan' do is gouge out your eyes, spit in de bleedin' sockets, den shove your charged eyeballs back int' your head an' watch your brains spatter de walls when dey blow?'

His fingers danced in rapid fire over the key pad of the electronic tablet, eyes shimmering as he chased after the data shooting by.

Essex made a noise of derision at his rather graphic description, 'Did you really think after your recent behaviour, that I would risk bringing you here without taking precautions to ensure your compliance?'

It was Gambit's turn to snort in derision as the data stream dried up and he flung the tablet negligently towards Sinister, not caring if the man caught it or if it shattered on the ground.

'Firstly homme, _you_ din't _bring_ me here; I followed you as you ran like a bebe back int' your secret hidey-hole. Secondly, oui I did figure you'd fuck wit' my brain; it's what you do, non? I jus' wan' know _what_ you done to me _dis_ time.'

With a couple of bounding steps he managed to interpose himself between Essex and the screen he was staring at so intently. The geneticist frowned at him in mild irritation. He stepped back and turned to leave the dais.

'Follow me.'

Gambit followed. He didn't seem to have a whole lot of choice. 'Ah oui, I'm gon get real sick o' dis.' He muttered darkly making sure to note every sharp turning as Essex led him from the chamber.

He noted all the tiny discrepancies in what was otherwise a monotonous and uniform underground bunker with a thief's keen eye. It might prove important to find his way back to that other room at some point in time.

'Mind control?' He queried impatient with Essex's show and not tell mentality. 'You put some kinda psychic suggestion in my head, homme; make me obey you whether I will or no, dat it?'

'Yes.' Sinister said frankly and Gambit frowned.

'How's dat work den; thought dat kind of mind-fuck only worked when de victim don' know dey bein' screwed wit?'

Essex did not bother to answer that and Gambit glared at his tassled back, muttering a number of choice epithets as he chased at the man's heels like a naughty schoolboy after a school master. He could actually feel Sinister's taint in his mind. It was like a series of smooth glass walls and barricades had been erected in his thoughts.

He could look through those walls and see the other side; see himself leaping at Essex and trying to rip his foul head from his shoulders, or charging up whatever he could get his hands on and blowing this lab sky high, but because of that see-through barrier he couldn't put those thoughts into action. He just couldn't.

Gambit licked his lips; he knew that psychic interference affected him differently than other people due to his mutation. Was that why he could feel Sinister's influence but couldn't break through it, at least not yet?

Finally Essex came to a large double door made of pitted and military thickness steel. Pressing his hand to a palm reader he opened those doors and led Gambit out of the inner lab and into the main area of the base.

'Mother of God,' Remy whispered not irreverently.

He stepped fully out of the corridor as the Black Womb doors sealed closed behind him. He turned around on the spot, craning his neck right back to look up into the shadowed reaches of the limitless ceiling. The heavy scent of roses filled his senses and he could taste dry earth and soil at the back of his throat. Snippets of his feverish imaginings came back to him from days ago. The fey-like colours of hundreds of corded data cables blurred in his vision.

'Mon dieu, I seen dis place before; I _know_ dis place.'

Sinister finally turned around and faced him then a broad cold smile slicing across his pallid face.

'Welcome home, my boy. Welcome to the Garden.' Sinister's smile was proud, 'We have much work to accomplish together.'

* * *

**Not Present, not Past, nor Future: the Theatre**

Backing carefully out of the cinema screening room Betsy stumbled out into the hallway and leaned heavily against the outside wall. Sweat coated her forehead and her hands shook. From inside she could still hear the raucous, vicious laughter of the 'audience' in the room.

Good God she had thought the river boat from hell Gambit had tricked her into the last time she ventured into his mind had been bad enough. She'd been wrong; a cinema full of Marauders laughing as the Morlocks died on a huge screen was a hundred times worse. Worse still was the unassailable fact that she had experienced the massacre from the perspective of its unwitting architect; she had lived Gambit's fear, his uncomprehending horror in agonising detail. She had truly walked a thousand miles in his footsteps; it was a monstrous intimacy and she could only blame herself. She had chosen to come here, after all.

She had found the truth, all right, and she hated it with a vengeance.

'Damn you Gambit; do you want to be despised, is that it?'

She demanded hotly of the thin air and the empty hallway and was therefore surprised when the softest scuff of a booted foot further down the corridor and the bang of a door reached her ears. The Gambit watchman had abandoned her almost as soon as he had asked after the show and she had still been too traumatised at the time to notice or take action. Now she was determined to find him and confront him once and for all.

Betsy was moving down the hallway after his shadow before she could think better of it.

It was horrible, and deeply troubling, to realise that deep in Gambit's subconscious the sights, sounds, and smells of the deaths of the Morlocks played out again and again endlessly to a backdrop of the Marauders laughter. No wonder Rogue had run screaming from him if this is what she had absorbed from his mind in Israel.

Still, Betsy realised now, that horror was only a fragment of the truth. Nowhere in Gambit's mind was there any hint that he had taken part in the killings or would ever have dreamed of doing so. He reacted like a traumatised victim not a perpetrator and yet tortured himself with responsibility for a crime Betsy was not sure he was entirely guilty of.

The inconsistency was what convinced Betsy to keep going through his formidable shields to find the underlying truth. She would not stop now, when she finally felt like she was getting closer, no matter what false horrors and fright-show shocks he threw at her.

Betsy had lived the massacre as he had lived it, shouldered that burden of guilt as he did; what more could he throw at her after that? Or did she really dare to pose that question?

The scent of cigarette smoke assailed her nostrils as Psylocke pushed open a fire door and ascended a rickety old staircase at the back of the theatre. She was gaining ground on the Gambit avatar. Pushing open another doorway at the top of the stairs she caught a glimpse of the hem of a brown trench coat disappearing around another corner of the grim little corridor.

Got you; Betsy grinned and quickened her pace in pursuit of the Gambit figment. When she rounded the corner, however, she found herself alone facing a dead end and one, battered, wooden door.

'Bloody hell, enough with the cliché trickery; come out and face me like a man.'

The scent of cigarette smoke was very strong here and she knew that Gambit was close. Straightening her spine and squaring her shoulders Betsy moved confidently forward to open the door at the end of the dingy corridor. She would play these silly games for a little while longer.

'This is foolish, Gambit. You do not help yourself with these games.'

What lurked behind that disturbingly innocuous door was both massively unexpected and completely mundane. Betsy almost laughed.

'Oh, of course, I should have guessed.'

It was a projectionist's room, filled with metal shelves lined with film canisters and old fashioned cinema projectors. Each shelf contained a film reel neatly labelled with such titilating titles as: 'Trauamtic childhood memories Vol: one, part 3', and 'Death of Genevieve: Notre Dame' to name just a few in the hundreds she could see within. This entire room was a repository of horror, shame, and sadness turned into carefully scripted fallacy for the enjoyment of the monsters in the screening room. Psylocke knew however that this room was more than that; this was the very heart of the theatre and the very heart of Gambit's psyche.

Gambit was the editor, the projectionist, and the director of his own nightmares. The blinding simplicity of it all was so very typically him. Trust a sinner to punish a sinner; it was all smoke and mirrors designed for self-flagellation but beyond that was something more. What better way for a man to hide than through the veil of his own guilt? Gambit's past secrets were not shielded in his mind, oh no, he was far too devious for something so simple. Betsy almost laughed as she realised that Gambit used his dark past _as his shield_. What better way to hide his true self than by throwing up a smokescreen of pain and terror to keep people away?

'Bravo thief,' Betsy stood in the threshold of the room, unwilling now to enter, and looked behind her down the empty corridor. There was no sign of Gambit's psychic ghost. He had simply vanished into the ether now that she had followed the bait right to the trap.

'Would it not be simpler to simply confront me, Gambit? Or do you fear me that much?' she demanded of the seemingly empty corridor. Unsurprisingly she received no answer. He wanted her to enter the room that was clear, but why? She had already figured out his game, after all.

Psylocke tossed her hair and gritted her teeth; this is what she had come for. She had wanted the truth behind the elaborate and macabre charade and here it was. So what was she waiting for?

'Fine I'll play it your way.'

She stepped through the door and no sooner had she done so then that door swung closed behind her. Instantly she turned on her heel and reached for the door handle, only to find, to her not very great surprise but considerable chagrin, that there was none.

She was trapped inside the very heart of Gambit's mind.

'Damn you, you twisted little bugger.' She muttered harshly smacking at the suddenly unnaturally solid door. Faintly she thought she heard the rich throaty sound of male laughter and gritted her teeth. Gambit would pay for this when she broke free.

Psylocke swore explosively and seethed for a moment before reluctantly turning back to face the room that was now her prison. She could destroy this whole façade and free her mind easily, but to do so was to lose any chance of getting to the bottom of all Gambit's careful deceits. No, as much as it grated on her, if she wanted the full truth she had to play to Gambit's rules and wait for him to make the next move. She swept her gaze over the small room.

Fly strips hung lazily from the water stained ceiling and the wall paper was yellowed and old; the stench of nicotine had seeped into every facet of the box-room until it seemed like another piece of furniture. Shelves of film reel in cases lined the walls and the only furniture in the room other than the projector was an old battered desk and chair. The surface of the desk was marred with coffee rings and littered with, of all things, potted plants and scraps of film cells that had not made it into finished products; snippets of memory broken and incomplete. The bright cheerful colours of black eyed susans and peonies clashed with the dull, tired décor bizarrely. The torn leather swivel chair had been tucked into the foot well of the desk and an over-flowing ashtray contained one still smouldering abandoned cigarette and a few more burn scarred broken memories.

There was one last object on the desk, and Betsy suspected this was why she had been locked in here. It was an envelope, open, with a page of neat white paper tucked inside. Betsy walked over and opened the letter. What she read within, written in Gambit's neat script, turned everything on its head all over again.

_Dear Remy: _

_The voices in your head have been talking and we've been thinking that it is high time to find a third way. Xavier's way is okay, but it's not our way, and there is no way that mother fucking bastard Essex is going to get his hands on us again. We've been thinking therefore that we should start to feed the jardin; make it a priority. Need to make us a future in case the X-men gig doesn't work out. _

_(We all know that any family we find has a tendency to throw us out when they get bored, right? Don't want to get caught by surprise by that kind of betrayal again, oui?)_

_Think about it rationally mon ami; the X-men will never forgive and they sure can't understand the roads we've walked, and might have to walk again. It isn't their way, isn't their world, and they don't want to know just how little difference there is between us and them. We're tired of being ashamed homme. We're tired of trying to be what we're not so that a bunch of folks that will never respect us might forgive us some day for crimes they don't even understand. _

_So think on it, oui? No point waiting on making the Jardin because knowing our luck we'll still be waiting when we're in our grave. We need another option and we need one fast; something other than Xavier or Essex. Let's feed the Jardin and start working on that future we're not sure we deserve. What've we got to lose, eh? _

_Who am I kidding? You'll do what you want anyhow, right Remy? Never bothered to think things through before so why are you going to listen to me now, oui? D'accord, whatever; just remember to come by the theatre from time to time. The audience is getting restless. We need more films to show them. Lord knows we don't want the Marauders getting loose in our head; think what they'd do to the Jardin!_

_J'taime Remy, laissez le bon temps rouler. _

_Sincerement, _

_Your mind._


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter Twenty-Eight: Recrimination**

A fork of blue white brilliant lightning scorched through the charged atmosphere and was only narrowly deflected and dispersed by Polaris' magnetic shield. Ororo Munroe's eyes burned pure white and her hair whipped like a Medusa's mane around her head.

'Where did they go?' the words were chillingly précised as the co-leader of the X-men stalked toward Alex and Lorna.

'Storm calm down,' Phoenix interposed herself between Polaris' shield and the advancing force of nature her friend was rapidly becoming. 'This isn't helping.' She added under her breath.

Creed snickered at the tableau, 'Bunch o' Primadonna's, the whole lotta yer.' He sneered. The piece of Sinister flesh in his hands seemed to have congealed now into a flaccid cold scrap, reminiscent of fish skin but without the scales. Wolverine snarled at him, claws extended and pointed at him.

'Hand it over Creed, before I come over there and take it.'

'Take what?' Cyclops turned his closed eyes towards the place where he thought Creed stood.

Creed tightened his grip on his bounty and took a cautionary step towards Dane and the younger Summers; with his back to his nominal allies he did not see the very slight, rather cruel, smile that arced up one side of Havok's mouth. Lorna's eyes were fixed very firmly on Creed's back as if focused on an invisible target.

'Piece of Sinister that got blown off him when yer fired at him Cyke,' Logan told the X-men leader as he watched Sabretooth intently, crouched low and ready to spring into action. 'I'm thinkin' that the plan was to get a piece of Sinister all along. The rest o' it was just Gumbo blowing smoke to distract us.'

Creed grinned, 'Awwww, did yer figure that all out on yer own?'

'What's so special about a piece of Sinister skin?' Iceman's attention was still split between Creed, Lorna, and Alex on the one hand and Warren on the other. Archangel was seriously pissed off and even though Gambit and Sinister were both gone without a trace, Bobby was worried about what his friend was going to do. Warren didn't cope with anger very well.

'I get it,' Iceman was not the only one who was surprised when Archangel brushed off the pieces of ice from the melting ice lasso that had restrained him in the fight and stood up. He flexed his wings as a way of working the tension and cold from his limbs. Warren looked from the X-men to the pound of flesh in Creed's grip.

'Didn't you hear Gambit talk about insurance?' Warren's golden eyebrows flicked up in his sky blue face, 'It's classic hardball negotiation tactics; he's setting up a blackmail play.'

'Blackmail?' Phoenix frowned, moving back to her husband's side. Ororo remained standing right where the portal had disappeared. She had herself under control for the moment but her emotional state was precarious.

'Blackmail,' Warren confirmed moving forward to stand by Wolverine, 'The only two things we know for sure about Sinister is that he was transformed by Apocalypse and he's vulnerable to Scott's blast but shit-all else.' He glanced at Alex, 'We don't even know for sure if Havok's powers work against the man.'

Alex smiled caustically, 'They don't,' he said simply with a shrug, 'at least not like Scott's; that's why Gambit needed Scott here and me to act as a charger. Apparently the fact that I produce plasma and Scott's powers are concussive makes all the difference.'

Alex paused a moment, smile keen, 'I got all that from the Dark Beast by the way; he and Sinister were tight back in his home-world.' There was a weight to his words despite his feigned casualness that made this statement seem more significant than it appeared to be.

Scott moved forward with Jean's help to guide him over or around any obstacles littering the ground. 'Gambit's planning to blackmail Sinister?'

Creed barked a harsh laugh, 'Fuck yer losers are stupid; Gumbo's with Sinister and we're the ones holding the goods.' He hefted the piece of flesh. 'Don't know why the punk thought all this shit was necessary to trick yer. Yer X-men couldn't tell yer elbows from yer assholes.'

Wolverine growled and moved forward. It was Archangel who pulled him back. 'Just ignore him.'

Wolverine shook off the other man's grip but conceded the point. He pointed one claw at Creed, 'This ain't over bub.'

Creed flipped him off negligently. Archangel cleared his throat and spoke before violence could erupt yet again.

'With a sample of Sinister's DNA and the right know how it might be possible to find a weapon against Sinister. If enough people knew how to hurt him Sinister would lose his edge.'

Warren looked from Creed to Polaris, 'It's not smart to face off against Sinister without some kind of advantage. You're going to keep the flesh aren't you? Use it as leverage so that Sinister doesn't come after you again?'

A ripple of surprise ran through the other X-men. It had often been discussed that the key to defeating Sinister lay in discovering the exact nature of his transformation. Unfortunately Sinister also knew this and he was so hard to harm that the opportunity to study any part of his genetic makeup had never emerged – until now.

Wolverine snorted sourly, 'Trust the Cajun to come up with a play like this.' He murmured under his breath. It was hard to tell if he was grudgingly impressed or just disgusted.

Polaris was still maintaining her magnetic shield but she dropped it then. 'Basically,' she agreed, 'In fact….' her mouth curved into a malicious smile and she reached out a hand towards Creed. 'I think I'll take that from you Creed, just for safe keeping.'

'Hey!' Creed snarled.

Polaris used her powers to lock onto the odd metallic component of Sinister's flesh and she pulled the sample from Sabretooth's grasp before wrapping it into a magnetic bubble floating between her palms. Lorna's eyes were hard as emerald chips as she spoke the next words, 'Wouldn't want the sample to get burned, after all.'

'Burned?' Sabretooth only had time to sense his immediate danger before Alex Summers shifted, stepped forward and raised one hand.

'Thanks for the help Creed, but we can handle things from here.'

Sabretooth moved, readying his muscles to leap, but he was not quite fast enough. In mid-lunge Havok's full force concentric plasma blast smashed into Victor Creed in a wave of almost invisible rippling heat.

Sabretooth screamed.

* * *

'Aaagghh! This is an outrage; have you forgotten that you are a hero!'

The Dark Beast howled pitifully as Bishop suspended him upside down by his ankles using a piece of prehensile metal cable from the still intact stairwell of the Beta-Star facility. The unconscious and beaten Fatale lay hog-tied and bound on the landing beside Bishop's feet.

'I forget nothing.' Bishop rumbled unperturbed by the injured and piteous mutant evil genius currently at his mercy. 'I would be more disposed to lenience if you began talking however.'

Henry McCoy peered up at the man who dangled him upside down and decided that due prudence would suggest that now was a good time for to engage in the art form of information exchange. The blood rushing to his head and his numerous injuries were an added incentive in favour of a sudden burst of loquaciousness on his part.

'What would you like to know?'

Bishop glared. He had fastened the metallic cord around the railing of the stair-rail and his fingers' drummed on the metal in discordant rhythm.

'What did you tell Lebeau?'

The Dark Beast had the gumption to grin, but soon thought better of that act of bravado as Bishop's hand's hovered with intent over the ropes keeping him suspended to the stairs; the look in the huge dark man's eyes made it clear that he did not believe in empty threats. Henry McCoy cleared his throat and decided that answering the large, aggressive man's questions might not be such a bad idea after all.

'Gambit? Why, I did not tell him anything at all.'

McCoy attempted to look scathing but it was somewhat hard to do when dangling upside over a stairwell. Nevertheless he gave it the old college try, all the same.

'I would think that that fact should be immediately evident from my less than pristine appearance and the unfortunate but salient point that I am in this pitiable situation in the first place' McCoy scoffed dismissively. 'It is primarily because _your_ disagreeable comrade at arms stabbed me and then proceeded to bring the ceiling down on my head that I am in this predicament; of course I told him nothing.'

Bishop reached down and jerked the taut line of the metallic cable. The Dark Beast began to sway on the end of the line like the weight on the end of pendulum. Squawks of outrage echoed up and down the stairwell.

'Cease and desist immediately; this is no way to treat a prisoner of war. Have you no concept of the Geneva Convention? The Bill of Rights? Release me at once you philistine!'

Bishop waited until the man had exhausted himself before he spoke once more. 'What did Lebeau wish to know?'

'Ack…..very well – I'll tell you; just kindly stop the swinging!' The Dark Beast was beginning to sound rather nauseous. Bishop reached out and stilled the cord, hauling McCoy upwards a little as a slight reward and incentive for further good behaviour.

The Dark Beast seemed to appreciate the greater security of being hoisted up against the stair-rails and offered a little more information.

'It would appear that the Acadian ruffian has decided to investigate his lineage. He posed a query over a mutual acquaintance of ours, and that gentleman's genetic research. When I regretfully declined to give him the information he requested he became most disagreeable.'

'Sinister? He asked you about Sinister?'

Bishop curled one large hand around the cord and let power course through his hand and down the cable. The Dark Beast hissed; he had already experienced the unpleasantness of being made into a forced conduit for another mutant's energy based powers. He hadn't enjoyed it with Gambit and he suspected he would enjoy it even less with Bishop.

'Yessss,' McCoy sneered, 'He wished to know about the Garden.'

Bishop reacted to the last word violently, with two hands he hauled on the cable and pulled the Dark Beast back over the stairs like a landed fish from a line. Before the other mutant could sufficiently recover Bishop threw him, still bound up in metallic cable around the legs, against the wall.

Wrapping one large hand around the Dark Beast's muscular neck he hefted the man up off his feet one handed and held his other fist, glowing with yellow-black power, poised to smash McCoy's shaggy blue-grey head to pieces.

'What did you tell Gambit?' Bishop repeated calmly.

''Uuuuk…..nothing! I told him nothing about the Garden.' Bedraggled, injured and suffering from blood loss, McCoy was unable to do much to defend himself. He choked helplessly and Bishop released his grip and let the mangy bag of fur slide down the wall boneless as a dead fish.

The Dark Beast coughed and sucked in air like a landed fish, mouth gaping open and closed. Bishop, quietly and with little fanfare, grabbed hold of the end of the cable still tied around McCoy's ankles and jerked on it. The Dark Beast was wrenched across the landing floor and ended up tumbling down the first few steps of the stairway. Before he could fall all the way down the stairs, Bishop wrapped the loose cord around one thickly muscled forearm and wrenched the Dark Beast back up the stairs once more.

Snarling and clawing like a huge dog the Dark Beast snapped at Bishop as the large man moved forward and promptly pushed one large booted foot down onto McCoy's windpipe. The hairy scientist could do nothing but stare up at the time lost X-man he had once tried to kill to keep his anonymity. Bishop bore down on the other man's delicate throat almost absently as he spoke.

'You called me a hero.' Bishop's deep voice held a lilt of something unusual and meditative, 'But you are mistaken. In my time I was an officer of the X.S.E. I was a hunter and a protector, a guardian of long forgotten dreams and ideals, but I was also an executioner. I was never a hero; that was not what I was raised to be.'

'Ack…….fascinating……' the Dark Beast squirmed and received only more crushing pressure on his windpipe for his troubles, '……I recline corrected…….'

Bishop removed his boot and crouched swiftly beside the gasping McCoy. Grabbing the doppelganger's head by a fistful of fur he wrenched the man's head back at the same instant his other hand curled around the thick column of the blue furred throat once more.

'The man who raised me, the man who made me what I am today, was the custodian of the Garden of Knowledge; the most complete and powerful archive of mutant lore in existence. He was a man of immense power and he was insane. That man's name was Lebeau.'

Almost without conscious thought Bishop began to throttle the life out of the Dark Beast; his eyes were very far away, his thoughts in a past that was many, many years yet to come.

'If I find out that you had any part in making Gambit that man, either through your evasions or more direct manipulation, I will kill you for it.' Bishop's dark eyes were hard as rock as he focused on McCoy, 'And I will show you then that I am no hero.'

* * *

'Havok - no!'

Phoenix cried out as the heat from Alex Summer's plasma blast rippled through the air like waves.

Creed's screams were lost under the liquid roar of power. The force of the blast knocked him back twenty feet into the twisted trunk of Polaris's metallic tree. Creed was a blackened, cowed lump through the searing white heat of the blast. He made no attempts to defend himself or move. He might have already been dead. Calmly Havok added another fist to the first and doubled the intensity of the blast directed on Creed. He was trying to melt the feral mutant's flesh right off his bones.

Phoenix lashed out with a telekinetic buffer; the X-men may despise Sabretooth but they weren't about to stand around and watch one of their own murder him in cold blood. The shield absorbed and deflected Havok's blast. Wolverine lunged forward towards Lorna and Alex as Warren took wing and flew towards the downed Sabretooth. Iceman iced up and created an ice slide to reach Creed's smoking, charred body.

'Time to go,' Lorna murmured curling her arms around her ex-lover's back and drawing them both into the air before the furious Wolverine could reach them; the piece of Sinister flesh remained encapsulated in the magnetic bubble Lorna had created.

Without hanging around to give the stunned X-men time to react Lorna dragged a large piece of metal shrapnel from the shattered Blackbird underneath her and Alex's feet creating a platform for them to stand on as she rocketed them upwards into the sky.

'Alex!' Cyclops called after his brother; he hadn't seen his own little brother turn on a supposed ally in cold blood but he had heard it, and smelt the burning heat of his brother's powers all the same.

'Bye Scott; I'll call you.' He heard his brother's cheerful parting over the crackle of lightning and the rumble of thunder. It nearly broke his heart. There was no remorse in Alex Summer's voice for what he had done.

'I will try and slow their departure!'

Storm rose on the winds and flew after the green streak of fire that was Lorna's flight trail. Even with her powers and command of the elements Storm could not keep up with the departing duo. She gave up after about twenty miles when Polaris reached altitudes Storm was not comfortable broaching without the benefit of a shield like Polaris' own.

The sky reflected her frustration and roiling emotion, bubbling under with lightning and thunder; the winds whipping over the burnt grasses of the Illinois countryside and hissing through the distant trees.

She dropped back down into the foreground of the Beta-Star facility as the other X-men were examining Creed's monstrously burned body.

'Jesus Christ,' Iceman hissed, 'the bastard's still alive. I can't believe he's still alive.'

'Yeah,' Logan looked from the charred meat stink of Creed to his claws thoughtfully, 'I can fix that.' He darted forward claws extended. He hated Creed but this was beyond torture; he'd give the bastard a quick death whether he deserved it or not.

'No Wolverine.' Cyclops sounded tired more than angry, 'X-men don't kill.' He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, 'even if some of us seem to have forgotten that fact.'

Wolverine hesitated looking from Creed, whose eyes had popped and melted in sticky runnels down his blackened cheeks and then back to Cyclops, he curled his lip but didn't have the energy to make a comment. He walked a few steps away from the crackling, hot fat stink of burning meat; the stench made him sick to his stomach.

'Yeah right,' Iceman scoffed, 'I may not like the bastard but this is really sick; might be kinder to just kill Creed. I'm not sure even his healing factor can recover from a Havok Fricassee Special.'

'X-men don't kill,' Cyclops repeated a worrying dullness in his voice. Jean frowned and moved closer to her husband's side. His mind was shut up tight but she could feel the simmering tension underneath his shields.

Iceman stepped back from Creed and created a faint mist of cold, not quite a frost and not quite water, to cover Creed's raw and oozing flesh. He shook his head and gratefully retreated from the horrid sight made all the worse by the fact that Sabretooth kept trying to move and speak.

Pasting a smile he didn't feel over his face he looked at his teammates. 'Looks like the dark side bug is spreading: first Gambit goes wacko, then Lorna and now Alex……although I guess technically Alex has been evil for a while, right?' Bobby frowned, 'Ah hell, does anyone else think we've missed a trick here? Like maybe we should just go homicidal postal worker ourselves and join the club?'

'Shut up Bobby,' Warren spoke tiredly. He looked at Cyclops, Storm and Jean, 'We need a plan. Creed needs medical attention and we've got no means of transportation.'

Cyclops frowned, 'Where's Bishop?' in all the excitement he had only just noticed the large man's absence.

Logan snorted. He was standing a good few feet away from the burned Creed but his nose was still twitching, reacting to the horrendous smell, 'Went after the Dark Beast; Cajun told him where to look.'

Cyclops frowned, fists opening and closing spasmodically, 'Iceman?'

'Yeah?' Bobby did not like the look on their Fearless Leader's face one bit. Nope even Storm's thunderstorm looked tame in comparison. A vein pulsed against the paleness of Scott's temple.

'Go find Bishop.'

'Um…..okay-dokey; you can count on me boss-man.'

Iceman left without further comment responding to the heavy undertone of strained patience and barely leashed anger he could hear in Scott's voice. Cyclops was getting ready to blow and Bobby didn't want to be anywhere near ground zero when he did.

* * *

'You did what wit' my brain tissue?'

Gambit whirled around to stare at Sinister who sat in, of all things, a leather and chrome wingback armchair, watching him with a blandly indifferent expression. The mad geneticist steepled his fingers together and bobbed one foot as he settled back cross-legged in the chair.

'I used the brain tissue I harvested from you during your surgery six years ago to augment the tesseract capacity of my site-to-site transportation devices. I also incorporated an amalgam of your neurological signatures into some of my security systems and synthesised an artificial version of your bio-kinetic charge.'

The other man regarded Gambit with cold dead red eyes. 'Your powers operate by manipulating molecules on an atomic scale. It was relatively easy to calibrate that potential within the remit of breaking the barrier between time and space to create my tesseract technology.'

Gambit pushed away from the far wall where he had been examining a rather good Cezanne mounted to the wall of this small suite of rooms that might possible form Sinister's actual living space. He had been trying to work out if the painting was an original or a very good forgery, now however such concerns fled his mind.

'You used my brain to make your tesseracts?' Gambit demanded.

He crossed the plush plum coloured carpeting and stepped onto the beautifully woven rug in the centre of the room. He glowered down at the seated and unmoved Sinister, the lights from the Tiffany lamps all around the room casting rainbow shadows completely at odds with the sterility and coldness of the rest of this strange place.

'You had no right to do dat.' Gambit balled his hands into fists.

He didn't know why it angered and unnerved him so much to realise that pieces of his own brain had been spliced into all Sinister's machines and do-hickeys, but it did enrage him. It was just incredibly creepy on a scale of magnitude that Gambit did not want to deal with and he found himself wishing that Sinister had never told him.

If Sinister's machines were made from his brain did they therefore think with a Cajun accent? More pertinently had he actually just thought something that ridiculous? Mon dieu, he was in deep shit here and no mistake.

Sinister arched one brow, 'It was of no use to you and the tissue had been damaged to such a degree that it was not sufficient for the purposes of cloning.' He pointed out mildly as if that explained everything. Essex then gestured towards the cheese board on the ornate glass and cherry wood coffee table.

'Sit and eat Lebeau. You are under fed and it is affecting your cognizant processes; I will require you at maximum efficiency soon enough.' Essex nodded to the array of cheeses, and biscuits on display, alongside chunks of fresh apple and clementine's waiting to be peeled.

Gambit eyed the selection suspiciously but eventually slumped into one of the waiting chairs facing Essex. He poked petulantly at some sort of cheddar with the end of the cheese knife. He glared up at Essex deeply suspicious. The century and change sociopathic genius simply awarded him a witheringly look of contempt.

'Really Lebeau, do you truly believe I would go to this amount of effort to acquire you once and for all simply to poison you with a chunk of Red Leicester?'

Gambit cocked his head to the side. When put in so many words it did seem somewhat foolish, and he _was_ hungry, what with all the betrayals, back stabbing, and double-dealing he hadn't eaten in something like forty-eight hours or maybe longer. He shrugged a little sheepishly and flicked a red eyed look at Sinister before muttering under his breath.

'Who knows what you be capable of homme.'

He carved off a slice of the red hued cheese and nudged it onto one of the Sesame seeded biscuits. The rich, full flavour of the cheese filled his mouth and throat as he swallowed down his mouthful. Essex was watching him when Gambit looked up with an almost expectant expression.

'Well?' Essex's red diamond forehead flashed.

Gambit licked his lips awkwardly; he was almost drowning in a sense of the surreal. He wondered if this was all some bizarre out of body experience or delirium and he was in reality dead or lying insensate on one of Sinister's operating tables; he was by no means sure which would be worse.

'Umm, merci; c'est tres bien,' Gambit swallowed the last of the biscuit, 'Could do wit' some wine mebbe, or somet'ing to drink? De food a petit bit dry, non?'

Sinister nodded and gestured to a cabinet in the far corner of the room. Feeling as though he had stepped into a bizarre parallel universe and expecting the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Hatter to drop by at any minute Gambit walked over to the drinks cabinet.

'I had the 1812 brought up from storage. The vintage is reasonable.'

'Is dat so?' Gambit blinked his eyes dazedly from Sinister who was actually eating the cheese to the incredibly valuable bottle of red wine in his hands.

Ah oui, parallel universe, that was the only explanation. Finding a bottle opener in one of the beautifully carved and polished drawers of the cabinet Gambit plucked two crystal glasses from the rack behind the stain glassed doors of the cabinet and walked back to the table.

'You sure 'bout dis?' he asked warily holding up the bottle as he placed the glittering crystal glasses onto the table top, 'Dis bottle could make a body some nice pocket change in de right market.'

'Money is of no interest to me.' Essex waved for him to go ahead and pour two glasses.

Gambit shrugged, 'Your funeral homme.' He popped the cork on the bottle. Sinister bared his teeth.

'Hardly.'

After that a strained but oddly civil silence, punctuated by the rhythmic ticking of Sinister's grandfather clock across the room, pervaded. Gambit found himself nibbling nervously on a biscuit while his eyes darted around the room, documenting with a professional eye all the priceless period pieces of Victoriana on display.

'You must realise now, of course, the nature of our relationship?' Essex asked him eventually around a sip of wine; the dull fire of the red diamond matching the dark ruby of the wine in the multi-faceted crystal glass.

Gambit paused in the process of cutting more cheese for them both with the cheese wire built into the board. He glared at the other man, 'Don' you say it homme; you ain't Darth Vader, an' dis sure as hell ain't a George Lucas movie.'

To Gambit's immense shock the tiny smile that twitched the edge of Essex's mouth on the right side suggested that Apocalypse's renegade understudy in wickedness actually understood the inference. The thought of Sinister settling down to watch Star Wars was enough to knock his brain permanently off-line and therefore Gambit wrenched his thoughts away from that whole topic. Some things were just too weird.

Sinister replaced his glass onto the coffee table and took up his china plate of cheese and apple slices, 'I am not your biological father.'

Gambit slumped a little in relief. 'Merci dieu,' He muttered in heartfelt manner before picking up his own glass of wine. Essex watched him keenly.

'Indeed, in actual fact I am your grandfather.'

Gambit choked, a mouthful of wine going down the wrong way. Sinister offered him a lace bordered handkerchief from God only knew where to wipe himself down. The geneticist's pallid face and empty expression did not waver but it was palpably obvious he had spoken deliberately to get that very reaction from Remy. Gambit glared daggers at him.

'I confess to having no idea who your biological father might have been, or if that individual even still lives. In truth it is of little concern to me.'

Essex watched him with the patience of a snake, 'Your mother was one of only two of the Black Womb children with any genetic merit; I believe in time you will be a credit to her memory and to my aims.'

'My mother?' It was a whisper.

All his life Remy Lebeau had done just fine without a mother but that did not mean he hadn't wondered about the woman who had abandoned him at birth – or at least had allegedly abandoned him at birth. He stared at Sinister for the longest time as the grandfather clock's pendulum sliced up time with steady monotony.

'What was her name?' The question was forced up his throat and passed his cold lips almost painfully. He had to know, he had to know her name at least, even though he hated that the answers would come from this most hated of men.

Essex nodded quietly well understanding what it cost Gambit to ask.

'Rebecca. Her name was Rebecca.'

* * *

Storm watched Iceman's rapid departure on an ice slide before turning back to Cyclops.

'I believe attacking Creed was designed to pose as a distraction,' she said grimly but with admirable calm. Only the raging winds howling through the debris of the sentinel battle belied that seeming calm composure.

Cyclops nodded lips pursed into a thin white line, 'To make me angry enough that I'd decide going after Lorna and Alex should be the team's priority; that way Gambit could do whatever he's planning to do to Sinister without our intervention.'

Storm nodded without any visible emotion upon her face; the sky lit up behind her head with sheet lightning throwing the whole field into harsh black and white relief and leeching the colour from the world for a second, 'I believe so.'

Jean squeezed Scott's arm, 'Honey?'

Cyclops shook off her grip and rebuffed the gentle brush against his mind. His actions were not overly harsh; nevertheless it was a demonstration of just how upset he was. As much as he might wish otherwise right now he just couldn't afford to allow himself to be comforted. If he did he thought he might start screaming and not stop. He took a breath before blindly facing the rest of the team.

'Alex and Lorna are not the main problem.'

He took another breath struggling to swallow down his feelings. He might not have Wolverine's senses but the stench of burned meat and the soft rasping of Creed's agonised breaths were more than he wanted to bear. The idea that Alex had done this to another living being, one that wasn't even a threat to him at the time, made him want to scream himself hoarse.

Scott's brows dipped into the furrow over his nose and it was an effort to keep his eyes firmly closed. His hands curled into fists at his sides.

'This is Gambit's fault.' He said heatedly; as soon as the accusation was off his tongue it felt like his mind had lit with a taper. This was all that lying, cheating, fucking bastard Cajun's fault.

'Gambit planned this; he used our weaknesses against us and manipulated all of us, including Alex, Lorna, and Creed to get what he wanted.'

Jean reached for him both in body and mind, 'Scott….'

'No damn it,' his voice cracked as he let himself shout. All the X-men turned to stare at him. It was incredibly rare for Cyclops to let his emotions get the better of him.

'No,' He said more calmly taking a step away to try and gain some control. 'He used my little brother against me, Jean. I can't forgive that.'

Scott shook his head and focused his voice on the rest of the team, 'Christ, he made it seem easy. Whatever team of X-men came after him Gambit was ready for them. He's learned how to manipulate our weaknesses because we let him in.'

Scott turned blindly towards his wife once more, 'We let him into our home, our team, our lives, and he used that to betray all the trust we ever put in him.'

Silence, except for the steady biting beat of hail falling from the sleet tossed skies, answered Scott Summers as he tried to pull the control and neutrality of Cyclops back over his thoughts like a protective shield. The depth and breadth of the sense of betrayal he felt surprised him.

Fucking Cajun; no wonder Sinister had singled him out. They were perfect for each other. No, Scott tried to marshal his thoughts; he needed to be rational about this. He needed to think over the ramifications…..he needed…….

How could Gambit use Alex against him like this? What had Scott ever done to Gambit to warrant that exploitation? There was no justification for this.

Cyclops knew that he and Gambit weren't friends, they weren't family; their relationship had always been strictly professional. Yet they had lived under the same roof, eaten at the same table, shed the same blood, sweat, and tears for the same purpose for three years. There was a weight of trust implicit with that sort of intimacy and it _hurt _Scott Summers to realise how little any of that had mattered to Gambit. He hadn't known the other man was really that cold blooded.

Or was he missing something here? A cooler still rational part of Cyclops mind asked quietly. Was he making assumptions based on faulty logic? It wasn't as though he really knew the first thing about Gambit, or what the man cared about – hell it was looking doubtful Gambit cared about anything at all, least of all himself.

He felt a cool graceful hand touch his arm and knew without seeing that it was Ororo who touched him. 'You are wrong Cyclops.' He marvelled at how she could sound so calm when he could hear the clash of thunder and the shrieking of her grief and hurt in the wind.

'Are you still defending him Storm?' Archangel didn't sound angry or condescending just coldly curious. 'Gambit's betrayal hurts you the most.'

'I know,' Ororo did not remove her hand from Scott's arm even as she turned to face Warren with a cool, serene calm like a wall barricading her true feelings from view, 'That is not what I meant.'

She looked from Scott's angry blindness to Jean's worried face and then to Warren's cold vindication. Wolverine met her gaze with blue eyes that were sharp but strangely emotionless; his feelings on the matter not on show for public consumption.

Storm sighed, 'He has betrayed us, but I am not sure that he knows it.'

She took a breath and raised a hand to silence Warren's instant retort, 'Listen to me.' She demanded quietly, her words enforced by the roil of sheet lightning rippling through the black-purple clouds. The pelting tingle of pellets of hail rained down on the twists of metal and fallen sentinels like the staccato rapport of icy bullets.

'A person can only betray a trust when trust has been given and accepted,' Ororo raised one shoulder in a gesture too remote to be a shrug, 'You can only break covenant when you have made a commitment and there are people there who expect you to uphold that commitment.'

Cyclops frowned, 'He was on the team for three years he….'

'He quit Cyke,' It was Wolverine's voice that interrupted him, tone dry as dust.

The older man shook hail from the wild tufts of his hair and pulled his cowl up over his head before continuing. There was a caustic curl to his lips.

'Gumbo had it planned from the start,' Logan chuffed a laugh, 'fuck the man even told me that he was going to settle some scores but I wasn't listenin' good enough.'

Wolverine shook his head ruefully, 'Gumbo's too good at playin' harmless; makes it easy to forget that he ain't a babe in the woods.'

'What are you saying Wolverine?' Cyclops was struggling to hold onto his patience but he was determined to listen. The only way to deal with this sense of betrayal was to try and understand the circumstances; if only he could get his mind around _why_ Gambit had taken this action he could begin to judge things sensibly.

Wolverine shrugged as he tried to light a cigar in the bellowing gales. He looked up at the almost preternaturally still Ororo with an almost gentle smile. 'Yer mind layin' off the storm, darlin'?'

The old Canadian turned back to Cyclops and Phoenix as Ororo tried to calm her emotions and therefore the raging rain lashed winds.

'Gumbo ain't never goin' to ask for help. Mostly 'cus he don't think he deserves it an' 'cus he ain't one to trust anyone to do his dirty work for him.' Wolverine shrugged, 'Can't say I blame him for that; got a similar philosophy myself.' The keen blue eyes raked over the X-men.

'Gumbo's real sensitive to being called a traitor – but yer _can't_ betray a team yer already turned yer back on officially.' Wolverine nodded to Cyclops, 'He tol' yer straight Cyke that he was givin' the X-men up completely; far as he's concerned all debts are paid and we ain't his people anymore – that way what he's doin' now ain't got a thing to do with betrayal; it's just business.'

Cyclops pursed his lips like he'd tasted something foul, 'That's ridiculous. The X-men are a family we…..' Ororo interrupted him.

'You are forgetting Scott that Remy has been cast out and discarded by one family already.' Storm pointed out sadly.

A look of trepidation passed over her grave visage as the lessening rain painted tears down her cheeks, 'Perhaps Remy simply decided to discard _us_ before we could do the same to him as did the Thieves Guild?'

Cyclops shook his head in agitated fashion. That kind of cold minded pragmatism, not to mention petulance, flew in the face of everything the X-men had always stood for. A flame of pure rage burned inside Scott's chest. It seemed obvious now that Gambit had never assimilated into the X-men at all; he'd held onto his own distrustful, bitter, and callous beliefs while paying false lip service to the Professor's ideals.

Scott could feel a headache developing behind his eyes. He should have argued with Charles when the professor allowed the thief to stay on at the mansion. He should never have expected loyalty and fidelity from a thief in the first place. More than any of the revelations about Gambit's past, all of which could be dealt with in time, it was Gambit's contempt for the X-men _family_ that Scott found unforgivable.

'If he quit then we don't owe him any consideration.' Warren spoke up still coldly resolute. As far as he was concerned Gambit's actions justified every negative impression he had ever held about the thief. The man was scum; pure and simple.

'He's proved he's dangerous, hostile, and doesn't care who he hurts to get what he wants. We need to treat him and Sinister as a package deal and we need to _deal_ with the both of them _once and for all_.'

It was telling that in the silence that followed that heated statement no one offered objection. Not even Storm, who stood quietly, face calm but eyes swirling with hidden storms of emotion mimicked by the weather and the storm laden, weeping sky.

Jean Grey Summers had said nothing this whole time. It had seemed to her that the team needed to vent their anguish, Scott especially, and she couldn't deny that she wasn't immune to her own sense of hurt and anger towards Gambit. Still she had insight the others didn't.

'That's exactly what he wants Warren,' she said quietly looking directly at Archangel. She broadened her scope to include all the X-men as she reached out to twine her fingers with her husband's. She could sympathise with his feelings, in fact she shared them, but that didn't change what she had sensed from Gambit and finally made sense of in her own mind.

'Gambit was expecting the X-men to have condemned him outright by the time we came here; I read that clearly from his thoughts,' She said carefully. 'Whatever Betsy gained from his mind he expected it to turn us against him totally. He wants us to make him the villain, Warren. He wants you to judge and condemn him.'

She met her old friend and former paramour in the eyes, 'Are you going to give him the satisfaction?' she demanded almost snidely.

_Are we going to play judge, jury, and executioner now? Is that what the X-men have become? Or are you channelling Apocalypse's old programming Warren? Are you still playing Death? _She added silently for Warren's ears only.

The thoughts Archangel did not even know he was broadcasting helped Jean keep her own perspective. Without Warren's almost knee-jerk vilification of Gambit as a counterpoint Jean wasn't sure she'd be able to keep herself from reacting in aggression and hurt feelings just like Scott.

It would be so easy to simply turn her back and blame Gambit for being an inveterate liar and pathologically unable to trust. So easy to believe, like Warren did, that those deep, destructive character flaws had been created in a vacuum that had nothing whatsoever to do with her, and therefore do away with any need to try and understand and rationalise his motives. Sometimes Jean hated being a telepath; it made it so hard to take comfort in one's own prejudices.

Warren frowned a little disconcerted both by her words and the thoughts she sent to him privately, 'I didn't think you could read him?'

Jean shook her head, the red flame of her hair falling around her shoulders damply in the soft deluge of the rain.

'Not well, but better now his shields are ruined,' she said shortly before turning away from Warren.

She squeezed Scott's hand tightly. 'He's burning his bridges Scott; all of them. As far as he's concerned he's already lost his second family and he'd sooner we hate him completely than be stuck in the same limbo of hurt feelings and loneliness he feels towards his family in New Orleans.'

Jean met Ororo's eyes next and found that her best friend had already come to the same conclusions. The hurt Storm felt was obvious and blazed in her mind like a raw ache of disappointment. Jean could feel the reflected bite of betrayal; Ororo could not understand why Gambit had not trusted their friendship enough to at least attempt honesty with her. There was fury and anger under the surface of Ororo's thoughts as well but they were secondary at the moment; later perhaps they would eclipse the hurt in Storm's mind completely but right now Ororo's spirit was weeping for the loss of a dear friend.

'Throwing the Sentinel head at us, refusing to acknowledge Storm, coming up with a plan that would confirm all our bad impressions of him…..it was all designed to have this result. I don't know why, but Gambit wants us to hate him. I kept hearing that screaming in his thoughts. He wants to be hated.' Jean finished finally.

'Why?' Cyclops could not fathom it. Jean would not answer him either with words or thoughts. A crackle of lightning shimmered through the air and although Scott could not see it he could taste the static on his tongue. Ororo's breath trembled as she prepared to speak.

'It is simple,' she whispered her voice merging with the mournful music of the gales, 'One does not mourn for those she hates and Remy does not want anyone to weep for him when he too dies.'


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter Twenty-Nine: Salvation **

'Well how do ya like them apples, huh?'

Rogue dropped the unconscious Psylocke onto the couch in the den and stood with hands on hips staring down at the other woman. Psylocke was breathing fine and her eyelids were twitching a mile a minute; as far as Rogue could tell the telepath was fine except for getting a dose of her own medicine. There wouldn't be much point in hauling her down to Hank either as Beast couldn't do anything to treat a psychic attack beyond putting the Ninja through a battery of pointless tests. Psylocke might not be Rogue's favourite person right now but the Mississippi native drew the line at that kind of cruel and unusual treatment.

'Well sugar,' she blew an errant curl of white hair from her brow, 'ya got some explainin' ta do.'

The man hovering guiltily in the threshold of the doorway to the den, strategically placed for a quick getaway, blinked up at her somewhat perplexed.

'Eh?'

Rogue rolled her eyes and jerked a thumb at the sleeping Psylocke, 'Don't even think o' playin' dumb Cajun. Tell me what ya gone and done to Betsy now or ah swear ah'm going ta Hank ta right now ta have mah head examined.'

She glared at the spectre in the doorway, 'Ya went poof, Swamp Rat, Psylocke killed ya or psychically absorbed ya – _or something_.' Rogue tossed her curls off her shoulders angrily. 'Ah saw it with mah own eyes. What the heck are ya still doing in mah head?'

The anxious Cajun in the doorway looked nervously around the room, eyes jumping from one innocuous piece of furniture to another for inspiration. He scratched at the two days worth of beard growth covering his cheeks and jaw like mould. His long brown hair was unkempt and his clothes were practically rags. He scuffed his boots across the carpeting.

'Dere any chance at all you gon believe me if'n I say I don' know?' he asked somewhat pathetically.

Rogue just looked at him hard. The Cajun looked increasingly uncomfortable. 'Start talkin' sugar.' She repeated levelly. His eyes widened at her tone of voice.

She smiled at him; it was not a particularly sweet smile. Gambit swallowed. He scratched at his jaw again; a nervous tic.

'I din't do dat.' He mumbled pointing at the unconscious Psylocke and clearly not expecting to be believed.

Rogue crossed her arms and cocked her hip, 'Right sugar,' she drawled in exaggerated fashion before scoffing and rolling her eyes in annoyance, 'Ah know ya're a better liar than that Cajun. Ya want ta try again with a little more conviction?'

The Swamp Rat winced and cautiously entered the room, making sure to stay well out of Rogue's reach. She watched him curiously as he leaned over the back of the couch to peer at Psylocke. A look of consternation passed over his face.

'Ah shit.' She heard him mutter as he reached out to stroke his fingers down the curve of Betsy's cheek. He looked up at Rogue, 'I din't do dis to her, but I t'ink de ot'er part o' me did.'

Rogue frowned. There was something about this version of Remy that was just so different from the shade she had grown used to. It wasn't just his appearance either. It was his mannerisms; the Remy shade prowled around with a smug confidence in his tailored suits and sultry ways. This Remy had a slightly guilty slope to his shoulders and moved as if expecting a beating; assuming blame before the accusations even started. The Remy shade at least made an attempt to shave and keep well groomed while this one just looked like a bum. The Remy shade was a sharp-tongued, keen eyed bastard; this one was tongue-tied and diffident.

'There are two o' ya?'

Rogue remembered too late that she was talking to thin air and thanked her lucky stars that Joseph was avoiding her and Sam was out in the yard. The last thing she needed was for one of the other X-men to walk in here and find her yelling at thin air while Psylocke lay unconscious on the couch.

This other version of the Cajun looked even more uncomfortable as she struggled to rein in her temper. Nervously his fingers drummed on the back of the couch cushions. He looked from Rogue to Psylocke.

'Not ex'ctly chere.' He raised his eyes and looked at her solemnly, 'Don you recognise who I am?' he asked and there was just the faintest hint of a backbone in those words. Some half amused, half irritated, ghost cadence that reminded her of the Remy she did know.

'Sugar right now ah'm seriously wonderin' if ah _evah_ knew ya.' Rogue admitted tiredly, moving to curl up in the battered old armchair across the couch. This new version of Remy wandered over to sit on the floor at her feet, back propped up against the coffee table.

'You wan' yell at me some more chere, or can I explain?' he asked her patiently, drawing up one knee against his chest and folding his arms around it before propping his chin on that knee and blinking up at her with big, long lashed eyes.

A tiny smile twitched her lips at the blatant attempt to manipulate her with puppy dog eyes. She also remembered that line. It was one the real Remy had used hundreds of times when she was mad at him.

'Talk sugar; ah can always yell at ya later if ah don't like what ya sayin'.' She shrugged watching as a smile lit the new shade's features.

'D'accord,' he said easily, 'S'pose dat's fair.' He paused a moment to rake fingers through his tangle of hair.

'Firstly de reason I'm still in your head chere, is because you keepin' me in there.' He flapped a hand in an airy gesture when Rogue opened her mouth to speak.

'You're not a telepath, chere. You don' just absorb mem'ries an' thoughts an' dat's it; you absorb _ev'ryt'ing_, includin' de _way_ a person t'inks.'

'Ya going ta tell me ya got a split personality sugar?' Rogue asked him very evenly warning in every careful syllable of her speech. Her smile would make Sabretooth proud, 'because if ya _are_ ah should warn ya: ah'm a real expert on _that_.'

The new shade smiled caustically and shook his head, 'Oui chere, know that, me.'

He paused a moment. Rogue watched as he flexed his fingers while gathering his thoughts. The gesture reminded her powerfully of the Remy she knew; that boy just could not stay still. There was always some part of him in motion even in repose.

'Chere don' you see?' the new shade glanced up at her, 'De ot'er me, de one you been listenin' to all dis time, dat be my _shield _chere. De part o' me dat protects my secrets from de worl'.' He looked at her keenly, 'My own personal lil' devil; need him to keep de demons in my head in line.'

'Ya shield?' Rogue stared and the new shade moved forward suddenly laying a hand on her knee. It was only then that she realised that this Remy wore gloves. She gasped and pressed a hand to her mouth. Recognition flooded through her.

'Ah know ya….ya….'

The red eyes fixed on her intently. 'Oui chere,' he said softly, 'I'm de Remy dat loves you more den my next breath.'

He closed his eyes and shook his head hard, 'Din't know chere, swear to you, if'n I'd known dat you'd swallow de shield down inside you, dat he'd do to you what he was only supposed to do my enemies….' He offered her a crooked, humourless smile but didn't finish the sentence.

Rogue tried to speak but found she couldn't; something was happening. It was like a connection had been forged, a live wire completing a circuit, and memories familiar but strange rose up like a warm wave to encapsulate her mind.

Rogue remembered, as if it was her own memories, the panic and the exhilaration of being flown around the mansion grounds in the arms of a blind and invulnerable woman. She remembered being very certain that she was going to die because the crazy woman holding her in an unbreakable grip was clearly insane. She remembered the chagrined acceptance that this was probably a fair payback for that little stunt with the diving board and the pool full of cold water.

Rogue remembered dragging herself up onto the bell tower roof of the mansion with a concussion, feeling vaguely nauseous and exhausted, but pushing that down because the blind woman floating just above the roof in front of him needed to know that she was not alone. The world and everyone in it was still there even if she couldn't touch it or see it.

Rogue remembered wrapping a towel around that woman's shaking shoulders, inhaling the sweet citrus and orange blossom scent of her hair; she remembered the sense that had overcome her then, a sense that for the first time in her entire life she knew what her purpose was. The purpose was that moment; it was wrapping her arms around that brave, lonely, difficult, stubborn, courageous and gorgeous woman and holding on for as long as she needed.

Rogue remembered promising the crying woman that everything would be alright and closing her eyes to send out a prayer, heart felt and honest, that the powers-that-be not make a liar out of her this time.

I can love this woman; she remembered whispering in her head as she rocked them both gently, kneeling on the roof of the mansion under the setting sun. I can love this woman with everything in me; please Lord let me do this one thing right.

Other memories, not Rogue's but hers all the same, rushed forward. The waves of memory lapped against the battered edges of her mind and heart like a warm ocean; bubbling with frothy surf and deep and constant as the tide. She saw herself through the filter of someone else's eyes - and it was a revelation.

The mind and soul that owned these memories she now found inside her mind loved her; _Remy _loved her, or at least he had in Israel. He had loved her for her stubbornness and the sheer bloody-minded courage she had always possessed even if she herself had forgotten. The courage that had allowed her, at seventeen, to turn her back on her mama and Irene and knock on her enemy's door to ask for the help she needed. Remy, the perennial outsider, always mistrusted and shifty, had loved that about her most of all.

He had _admired_ her. He had respected her for her courage in dealing with the X-men's dislike and mistrust of her upfront and without backing down for weeks and months before she found acceptance; he had loved her for the strength of character that let her face her accusers and not run away.

After a life time of petty deceits, lies, and bad choices made through cowardice more than malice, that sort of honesty was a concept both alien and awe-inspiring to Remy, Rogue now realised this and found herself shaking with the intensity of his genuine, real, admiration. He had always known, in his mind and heart, that he could never be that strong; that he could not afford to be for a thousand reasons, most of them nothing more than fear of trying. All that he had felt he could do was give what he had to give, and more besides, to Rogue and hope that it would be enough.

'Oh God.'

Rogue sobbed as the memories subsided, drawing back like the soft seep of the tides and leaving a warm, soft glow behind. As she blinked her eyes and took a breath Rogue could still feel that all encompassing love, respect, and understanding brushing the edges of her consciousness. She knew that she would always retain those feelings now she had found them; everything she had wanted had been with her ever since Israel. She had just been too angry and hurt to see it.

'I never meant to hurt you chere.' The new shade withdrew his hand now that he knew that the message he had been trying to give all this time had finally been received; too late to do much good, but important all the same.

'Ya really did love me, didn't ya Remy?' Rogue whispered, wiping at her tears with gloved hands. 'When we kissed in Israel ya loved me true, right?'

He nodded, a crooked smile quirking his lips, 'Oui; got a real gift for fuckin' up a sentiment though chere. Je suis desole.' He shrugged sheepishly and Rogue laughed.

'Ah'd kinda figured that one out already Swamp Rat.' She scrubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands. Her smile became slightly sad.

'It's not enough though is it, sugar?' Rogue lifted her gaze to glance over at the unconscious Psylocke, 'Ya love me, ah love ya, but together all we do is drag each other down.'

She didn't look at the new shade, the part of Remy that had pursued her, and wanted her, and loved her almost from the moment they'd met. She could feel his eyes on her however, burning with a steady flame.

'Ah have ta let ya go sugar.' Rogue finally faced him and saw a mirror of her own sad smile on his face. Rogue snickered darkly, 'Tina Turner was right; love really don't have much ta do with anything does it? Sure don't change things any.'

'Non chere, it changes t'ings, it jus' don' _fix_ 'em.' The red eyes were soft and calm and understanding. 'Lovin' you made me a better man, chere. Dat be somet'ing dat can never be taken away from either of us.'

'But it don't change the truth, sugar; it don't change ya past or ya future.' Rogue laced her fingers through the new shade's as he placed his hands upon her knees. His skin warmed leather gloved fingers felt strong and real, even though she knew they weren't.

'It don' change yours either, chere.' He pointed out dryly.

Rogue turned her head away from the ironic glimmer in his eyes and bit her lip, 'Point ta ya Swamp Rat.'

She flexed her fingers, letting go of the phantom. 'Ah'm glad ah got to feel it, Remy; ah'm glad ah got ta know what ya felt for me.' She ducked her head, 'Thank ya for tryin' ta love me honestly, sugar.'

He chuckled lightly. 'It weren' no trouble chere; loved every moment of it,' He smiled wryly, 'Even de parts I din't like.'

Rogue smiled and then she laughed too, 'Me too sugar.'

The new shade stood up and it was only then that she noticed his appearance had changed again; he no longer looked like a hobo and he didn't look like a cut-rate gangster either. Instead the man who gently drew her to her feet holding her hands lightly in his was finally the true reflection of Remy Lebeau; a man who was villain and scoundrel, scruffy drifter and lovelorn fool mixed with a whole world of other things betwixt and between that she had no words for. For all that he was still one of the finest sights he had ever laid eyes on.

Rogue looked up into his smiling eyes, 'Ah'm letting ya go now, Remy. Ah can't keep all ya secrets in mah head any more.'

He nodded, 'Never wanted you to chere; not your burden to carry.' He glanced over at Psylocke and his grin turned wicked, 'Figure we let Betts do dat, eh? She asked for it, non?'

Rogue snickered despite herself, 'Ya _bad_, sugar.'

Remy beamed at her. Rogue looked down at her feet, awkward and sad but at the same time finally feeling like she had put all the pieces together in the right order and found some sort of peace.

'Ah'm not sure how ta……' she trailed off.

A long fingered hand curled under her chin and tilted her head up. 'One last kiss for de road, eh chere?' he arched his brows provocatively making Rogue laugh.

'Once bitten, twice shy, Swamp Rat.' She pressed her gloved fingertips to her lips and rested them against the phantom's smiling mouth.

'All the best Remy,' she whispered.

Rogue closed her eyes and concentrated. She wasn't really sure what she was doing and at the same time she knew instinctively; it was her mind after all. Reaching out she gathered up all the spectral tendrils of Remy's mind, personality, and past, drifting in her head. She gathered them close for a moment and then she let them all go; watching as every trace of Remy faded like smoke from her mind.

_Au revoir chere; _she heard the whisper and the breath of laughter; she tasted tobacco and road dust and felt the brush of torn velvet darkness over her skin and the tingle of clever fingers tangle for a second in her hair. There was the ruby smoulder of eyes burning in the satin night and then nothing at all to follow.

Rogue knew herself to be free then; it was a bittersweet salvation. For the longest moment she simply stood still as stone and listened to her own heart beat. Eventually however she came to realise that it was time to start living again. No one had died after all, nothing was broken that truly needed fixing – but somewhere out there was a friend who needed her and Rogue could not waste any more time dwelling on might-have-been's.

The X-man Rogue opened her eyes and looked down on the sleeping Psylocke. She smacked her palm over the comm. badge attached to her jacket. It was time to starting acting like herself again.

'Beast get ya butt up to the den, hon. Betsy needs ya.'

* * *

'You kilt dem all? Mon dieu I t'ink I'm gon be sick.'

The Garden, in all its shadow and eldritch light glory, wheeled and spun. Glowing cables and the heavy perfume of the darkness blooming roses made Remy LeBeau's senses reel. Sinister's emotionless words rang heavy as mourning bells in his recent memory.

Gambit dropped down into a crouch, hands still wrapped around the iron rail of the tower that was the nerve centre of the Garden. He pressed his forehead against his forearm and breathed carefully through his nose.

'You are not taking this as well as I had anticipated.' Sinister watched him coolly standing a few feet away.

'Perhaps my minor modifications to your thought processes have already begun to erode. I had hoped that repairing the chemical imbalance in your brain would allow you to rationalise properly without resorting to unnecessary and sustained bouts of emotionalism.'

Gambit jerked his head up sharply and instantly regretted it. Once the ugly yellow spots stopped jitter-bugging in front of his eyes he glared at the mad scientist whom he flatly refused to consider as his blood relation. Mon dieu he hated the sonofabitch; how could he be related to this monster?

'How you t'ink I'm gon take it?' He demanded leaping to his feet and gesticulating wildly with his hands.

'You jus' tol' me dat you _slaughtered _your own chillen homme! Mary Mother of God – I don' know what's worse, dat you done dat, or dat it _surprises_ me dat you done dat.'

Knowing that he couldn't blast Essex to smithereens, thanks to the homme's tampering with his mind, Gambit wheeled around and leaned over the edge of the tower railing staring almost wildly, but blankly, out at the expanse of smooth darkness and shimmering fey lights of the Garden. He took a number of deep breaths and let the heady aroma of the roses coat his senses and dull the shock.

Sinister, much to Remy's eternal gratitude, refrained from comment. After a while Gambit managed to think around the horror and spoke without looking at the other man.

'Why'd you kill de Black Womb femmes, homme?' His teeth flashed in an almost snarl of disgust. It was hard just forcing the words up through his throat without screaming. 'You're a murderin' sonofabitch, m'sieur, but you usually pretend to have a reason.'

He was proud that he kept the tremor from his voice. All he could think of however was the idea that once upon a time he had had scores of aunts before Sinister had killed them simply because it turned out the homme wasn't all that good at playing God.

Sinister still did not speak and Gambit focused on the shifting lights of the data cords to help him control his feelings; blue and green and sulphur bright orange, sunset gold and dragon's blood red. The merging of the colours under the run of his hot eyes was strangely beautiful; the sonorous hum of the power generators hidden in the depths of the Garden warped and twisted in his ears until he heard a wordless melody.

'It musta burned somet'ing fierce, homme,' a snide smile quirked Gambit's lips, 'when you realised dat all your work be a failure – dat _you_ be a failure.' He looked over his shoulder at Sinister. 'You tried to play God an' you couldn' even manage to play father.' He spat contemptuously.

The diamond on Essex's brow burned dully and his bloodless lips pressed together. 'In all experiments there is trial and error; you stand as proof that Black Womb was not a failure.'

Gambit chuckled darkly and shook his head reaching into the pocket of the trench coat Sinister had produced for him and pulling out a cigarette, 'Ah but I be flawed, non?' he waved a hand vaguely towards his skull. 'Inherited de family _bad blood_, no?'

Sinister shifted, the rustle of his tassled cape sounding like a snake shedding its skin. 'You obviously believe you know something, LeBeau. I will indulge you for the rarity of the experience of watching you attempt rational thought. What do you think you know of my work and your purpose?'

Gambit smirked humourlessly at the jibe but did not turn to face Essex. 'My mutant powers don' work right, oui? Needed to have all dat brain surgery or I'd've died; I'm never gon live up to de potential o' my genes. Not like mon Capitan Cyclops an' his woman.'

He threw a mocking look over his shoulder at Essex, 'Face it mon _Grandpere_; your plans be a bust,' his lip curled and he found he was actually enjoying the moment. 'Especially if'n, after all dese years, I'm de best you can do.'

'You underestimate your value, LeBeau.' Sinister demurred, 'How unexpectedly modest of you.'

Remy LeBeau laughed bright and brittle. 'Non homme, I always had low self-esteem, me; I'm just good at fakin' it.'

Below the two men the Garden continued to bloom in the eternal subterranean twilight; the rainbow glow of the cords whispered with hundreds of thousands of secrets and the condensed power of centuries upon centuries of evolution. The roses twinned and rolled across the black earth wrapping thorn laden tendrils around the feet of the metal tower. The whole Garden whispered with one voice in Remy LeBeau's ears and he almost felt he could understand what it wanted to tell him.

'Did you kill my mother too?' he asked softly as Sinister moved up to stand beside him and look over the Garden with surprisingly similar red glowing eyes.

'No, your mother was a favourite of mine.' Essex glanced at him sideways, 'It was she who planted the roses, along with her sister Gloria.'

Gambit glanced sharply at him but did not speak; there was something in Essex's face, something almost like a real expression of feeling that silenced even his tongue. Sinister was watching the Garden as if he could see the past unfold beneath him in the fey-light glimmer of the restful Garden.

'I named Rebecca for my wife.' The other man explained almost absently. 'Her mutation was primarily physical,' Essex flicked his eyes over Gambit for a moment, 'You owe your unique physiology to your mother. Her agility, her musculature and reflexes; in this way you are the same. Rebecca lacked any other mutagenic potential in her own physiology, however, but her genetic pedigree was great indeed. I knew that she, or her sister, would bear a child of considerable power.'

'So what went wrong?' Gambit quirked an eyebrow, 'Don' seem to me dat you woulda let your wunderkind outta your sight by choice,' he pointed out dryly, 'an' I don' figure it was your plan to dump me on de streets of N'awlin's either.'

The diamond mounted to Sinister's pallid forehead throbbed, 'She betrayed me.' the century old scientist turned his head and his eyes burned into Gambit. 'Your mother betrayed me when she killed Amanda and tried to destroy the Garden.'

* * *

'Sam - Joe: get ya butts out here now! We got us some company come a-callin'.'

Rogue snapped into the comm. badge as she flew at full speed out to the far reaches of the Xavier estate's backwoods. One of Cerebro's alarms had just been tripped to an unknown teleportation rift opening out back; they had intruders on the grounds.

'Ah'm comin' ma'am.' Cannonball's reply was almost drowned out by the roar of his powers as he zoomed up beside Rogue in the air. Seconds later the silently flying Joseph arrived alongside them.

'Do we have any idea who the intruders are; or the nature of the threat?' Joseph demanded as he flew to her right.

Rogue snorted sourly, 'Do we evah, hon?'

'A fair point,' Joseph lapsed into silence as the trio crested the thick canopy of conifer trees hedging the edges of the estate and dropped down to engage the enemy.

'Cyclops!' Rogue touched down into the grass before the miraculously returned mission team, 'Lordy are y'all a sight for sore eyes.'

It was only then as Cannonball and Joseph dropped down next to her in the clearing that Rogue fully registered just how bedraggled the mission team looked. She winced as a sense of deep foreboding filled her to the core. Cyclops was missing his visor and every member of the team was scorched, torn, and bruised. There was also an almost palpable pulse of repressed anger coming from each one of them; the weather had already begun to shift to match the pure white heat glowing in Storm's eyes.

'Rogue, get Creed to the medbay immediately.'

Cyclops barked out as Rogue noticed the horribly burned and seemingly unconscious Sabretooth lying in the grass alongside what she thought, for a confused half second, was Beast, until she realised that it just couldn't be – and anyway the mangy looking battered form at Bishop's feet had grey fur. A greenish-grey skinned woman, bloodied and battered, stood between Warren and Iceman in chains of solid ice. Rogue frowned; she thought she ought to recognise the strange woman but couldn't quite place her.

Still as she knew better than to argue with Cyclops when he used _that_ tone of voice Rogue stopped worrying about what trouble had befallen the team and instead scooped up the foul smelling and revolting looking Creed without another word. She was just about to take to the skies and fly back to the mansion when Scott spoke again; his words were hoarse with barely contained anguish. It was unnerving as all get-out. Cyke just did not let his emotions show like this.

'When you're done Rogue come to the War Room – we have a lot to talk about.'

Rogue blinked at him, finding it odd that Cyclops was looking straight at her even though his eyes were squeezed closed. Her gaze then tripped to the grim faced Phoenix and an ashen Storm. Rogue bit her lip and nodded once.

'Ya the boss Cyke,' She took to the skies again with Sabretooth in tow before Cyclops could say another word.

She didn't know what had happened to the mission team, but whatever had gone down was obviously bad. Rogue found herself wondering if it had something to do with Remy. She hoped for his sake that it didn't because she didn't fancy his chances if he was the one who had put that look in Storm's eyes or riled up Fearless like that.

* * *

Lorna Dane settled herself down on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Alex Summers stood beside her, hands in the pockets of his jacket as he looked up and down the highway for non-existent traffic.

'Are you sure about this?' he asked for the umpteenth time and Lorna glared up at him until he backed away a step hands held up in surrender.

'Sorry; I promise I won't ask again.'

'That's what you said the last time.'

Lorna turned away from him, ostensively to make sure the sample of Sinister's flesh was still securely contained within the magnetic field she had generated around it. She refused to admit that she was a little worried herself. Remy had promised there would be a car waiting to pick them up when the got here, but she and Alex had been sat here on the side of this empty road for twenty minutes. In that time not a single car had……..

Both she and Alex looked up and down the highway as the faint purr of an expensive engine reached their ears. Through the dusk gloom a sleek black limousine materialised almost out of thin air. Lorna stood up as the car pulled up beside them and the window in back whirred down.

A woman with the face of a Botticelli angel and the cold eyes of a hunting cat looked the pair over before those lilac chips of ice riveted on Lorna.

'Mademoiselle Dane?' The accent was bayou Cajun through and through.

'I'm Lorna Dane, yes.' Lorna admitted wondering if it might be better to feign ignorance after all.

The woman in the car smiled, 'Excellente.' The door opened to reveal a sumptuous and massive interior. The woman was dressed in a sheath of violet satin with mauve ribbons binding her blonde dreadlocked hair. She beckoned for Lorna and Alex to get in.

'M' name be Belladonna Boudreaux; please won't you join me?'

Alex and Lorna exchanged glances. Alex shrugged, his eyes clearly telling Lorna that it was her call and he'd follow her lead. Lorna sighed and hitched her shoulders. She released the breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding.

'We'd love too.' Lorna said through her teeth.

She and Alex got into the back of the limousine. It pulled away soundlessly from the edge of the road as soon as the door closed. Belladonna Boudreaux watched them with patient inscrutability.

'You mind if'n I smoke?' she asked gesturing to the unlit cigarette clenched between her long fingers with the manicured and opalescent painted nails. The woman reclined back against the seat opposite where Alex and Lorna sat close together for moral support. Belladonna sat with one leg crossed over the over and wore six inch black spiked heels whose straps criss-crossed up her shapely calves. Lorna elbowed Alex in the ribs when she caught him staring.

'It's your car go right ahead.' Lorna ground out between her teeth as Alex rubbed at his side and the other woman smiled just a little.

'Merci,' The blonde woman lit her cigarette with languid lack of haste.

Alex was not alone in watching as the woman sucked on the end of the cigarette with delicate greed, held her breath and then removed the cigarette from between her painted lips to blow a perfect smoke ring; all the while those cold lilac eyes watched the two mutant's unblinkingly.

'Christ; it's a blonde female Gambit.' Alex muttered under his breath but in the soundproofed lulling quiet of the limousine sound travelled. Belladonna watched Alex very coolly quirking one carefully plucked and shaped brow.

'Careful cher, honour dictates dat I treat you as m' ally, at least for de momen', but I don' take kindly to insults, oui? M' husband an' I don often see eye to eye.' She smiled coldly, 'I don' take well to bein' compared, n'est pas?'

Lorna shot Alex a withering look before looking at the assassin seated across from her, 'Ignore him, Ms. Boudreaux,' Lorna addressed Gambit's estranged wife with a strained smile, 'He should know better than to shove his foot in his mouth by now, but he just doesn't seem to learn.'

Belladonna turned her snake eyes on Lorna then; that pretty icy regard swept her up and down. Lorna found herself subjected to a look that was neither hostile nor friendly but was so studiedly neutral that Lorna shivered. After a moment the woman nodded and turned her focus to the sample Lorna still kept in a magnetic field bubble in her lap. A real smile spread over the woman's lips.

'Is dat it?' She asked leaning forward eagerly. 'Is dat de red diamond bastard's flesh?'

'Yes,' Lorna resisted the urge to draw the floating sample away from the other woman, even though she knew the assassin could not take it from her. Gambit had tried to warn her about Belladonna but his words had fallen somewhat short of the mark; Lorna somewhat expected that it was deliberate. It had been a long time since a human had scared Lorna Dane by doing nothing more than smiling at her.

Belladonna Boudreaux sat back against the plush suede leather of the car seat and smiled hugely. She murmured something in French and then, to the mutual surprise of both Alex and Lorna, crossed herself in the Catholic way. The blonde woman caught the look the two mutants shared and chuckled sweetly.

'It surprise you dat I keep de faith?' She asked almost purring.

Lorna glanced at Alex for help; of the two of them he was the only one who even nominally believed. Alex cleared his throat after receiving a quick pinch from Lorna.

'It's not our place to make comment, Ms. Boudreaux; sorry.' He offered a faint smile and received a slightly warmer one in return. The assassin snuffed out her cigarette and re-crossed her legs.

'M' husband an' I, we bot' believe in de Lord.' Belladonna explained almost absently as she fixed her ice chip eyes on the sample of grey flesh held in magnetic stasis once more. 'But we treat de Almighty in diff'rent ways.'

Belladonna smiled, 'M' husband got it int' his head dat he need to be redeemed, an' dat de path to salvation be one of penitence an' guilt.'

The blonde woman frowned faintly and looked out of the tinted dark window and through it to the brown warped scenery blurring by the speeding car. Alex and Lorna exchanged yet another awkward look. Neither knew quite what to say, or if an interruption would be appreciated, but despite their better judgement they were powerfully curious to hear what Gambit's wife had to say.

'M' husband is fool,' Belladonna pointed out bluntly, 'Bless his heart, but he be born a fool, he live a fool, an' he gon' die a fool.' The slightest hint of affection touched the woman's lilac eyes for a second but was gone almost too fast to countenance.

'He still believe dat de Lord _cares_ for him; he believe dat if'n he live his life de way people say he got to live he be forgiven.' Belladonna's smile was stiletto thin and just as humourless, 'I say forgiveness be damned; if'n de Lord an' all his angels wan' judge me let 'em. I bow down to no one. I live my life wit' pride an' expect no less from dose I meet.'

'So why keep faith; if you don't believe in the tenets of that faith?'

Alex asked intrigued and fascinated. Lorna frowned just a little. Belladonna Boudreaux had something of the same raw charisma that Gambit had refined into an art form; even Lorna was affected by this cold, harsh, dangerous beauty seated across from her.

Belladonna smiled, pleased to be asked. 'Got to blame someone for dis shitty worl', non?' She laughed softly. The sound was like ice water over rocks; musical and lovely but utterly and inhumanly cold.

'Well I guess I can see the logic of that.' Alex admitted ruefully. Slightly more comfortable laughter filtered through the limousine. Alex flicked a look at Lorna and then focused on Belladonna.

'Ms. Boudreaux, if you don't mind my asking?' he began in his best earnest little boy voice. The woman opposite him arched her brows inquiringly and inclined her head for Alex to continue. Lorna told herself firmly not be jealous as Alex asked his question. 'Why are you helping Gambit – you're not exactly together right now are you?'

Lorna closed her eyes in total exasperation and prepared to defend herself and Alex from Belladonna's wrath. Way to go 'Lex, she thought snidely, remind the nice lady that her husband regularly cheats on her.

Strangely Belladonna was not upset by Alex's complete and utter lack of tact. Instead she nodded and stroked her hands down her short skirt, drawing attention to her long, beautifully toned legs.

'Oh dis don' have a t'ing to do wit' unrequited love or any o' de silly t'ings dat m' husband tells dose ot'er femmes.'

She flexed her fingers and examined the polish on her nails. She looked up after just the right interval of time had passed; she may have lacked her husband's natural gift for putting people at ease, but she had clearly learned the same tricks of manipulation as Gambit.

'Then what is it?' Lorna found herself asking completely captivated by this strange and cold creature. 'Helping us puts you at risk; I can't see what you have to gain from it.'

Belladonna grinned, a strangely masculine expression for a woman with the delicate, perfectly carved features of a porcelain doll. 'It be simple; I get m' husband back an' wit' him total control o' de Guilds.'

Belladonna leaned back against the cushions and stretched her arms out along the chair back; again Lorna was struck by how very masculine the gesture was. Clearly Belladonna was a woman who had become accustomed not only to playing in a man's world, but at winning in a man's world. If the woman wasn't so unnerving Lorna might have actually liked her.

'Remy been runnin' away from his future from de momen' he realised he 'ad one. He scared o' it; scared to sit upon de throne dat been built for him. He wants to serve in someone else's Heaven, an' he don realise dat he got a kingdom to rule down in de shadows wit' me.' Belladonna purred drolly.

'A kingdom?' Alex and Lorna were both lost in a sea of honeyed vowels and confusing imagery.

Belladonna took pity on their ignorance, 'Remy be a mutant, an' mutants have power wit'out havin' to earn it,' She pointed out patiently. 'De Guilds are dyin'; we don' compete well in de modern worl' because mos' o' dose in power in de Guild's still act like it be de nineteenth century. I can' rebuild de Guilds alone; de T'ieves won' let me, but wit' Remy, m' rightfully wed husband at m' side, I can shape de Guilds int' a force to be reckoned wit'.'

'You're empire building?' Alex stared as the frighteningly alluring woman across from him inclined her head almost coquettishly shifting in her seat so that her violet skirt rode up her leg and revealed a creamy expanse of white thigh and a derringer in a thigh holster.

'Oui; c'est vrai,' her small, perfect white teeth flashed in a moments brilliant, coldly feral smile.

'Gambit doesn't want to rule a criminal underworld with you.' Lorna blurted out before she could think better of it. She wouldn't claim to know Remy all that well, but she was certain that if he had those sorts of ambitions she would have noticed.

'Non,' Belladonna's eyes flashed like sleet drenched lilacs, 'He wan' to die a martyr to his conscience an' plead his case to de God dat never cared to save him in life,' She sneered. 'I do not care what he wan' for he is a fool wedded to his guilt.'

The assassin's eyes rested on the sample of flesh still caught in Lorna's power yet again. Her smile was chilling.

'Better to reign in hell den serve in heaven; a cliché, but it be true.'

The woman reached out one hand across the divide between the seats and fluttered her fingers just above the humming throb of power above the magnetic bubble.

'M' husband betrayed me. Not when he pursued dose ot'er femmes, but when he abandoned his heritage.'

She looked up sharply, real anger in her eyes, 'Any time since it was proven dat Julien did not die in dat duel he coulda challenged his banishment; he coul' have come home an' built de sort o' worl' we used to say we would make for our chillen. But he din't; non, he followed a cripple an' a bunch o' fools to near certain deat' instead, an' abandoned all dose dat need him.'

Belladonna threw herself back against the upholstery of the limousine once more, slamming one fist into the arm rest. For a moment afterward the car moved through the vacuum of the gathering night in silence while the assassin pulled herself together.

'M husband need my 'elp,' the pretty young blonde woman smiled cruelly.

'Who better to make a weapon to kill de Devil den a nest o' assassins, oui?' Her smiled turned proprietary as she once again looked on the sample pinned between Lorna's palms; almost without thinking Lorna increased the power of the magnetic bubble around that precious sample. Belladonna's smile grew deeper as if she could sense, and liked, the unease rising from Lorna and Alex.

'D'accord, I will 'elp m' husband free himself from 'is demons once an' for all; den when he is free an' de X-men turn dere sanctimonious fool-headed backs on him, dere will be not'ing left for him in de whole worl' but to come _home_.'

Belladonna's eyes were distant and hard, yet unaccountably sad. 'He will remember den where it is he belong an' he will know dat dere be a place, an' a people, dat want him for his darkness not jus' his shame.' Belladonna's icy passion left her as abruptly as it had arrived, draining away like water through cracks in concrete.

Neither Alex nor Lorna said a word against Belladonna's claims; they did not dare and it was not their place. The sleek black limousine continued to cruise through the night like a hunting shark, headed unerringly towards its secret destination.


	31. Chapter 31

**Chapter Thirty: Intermission**

**November 7****th**** 1993: Le Maison LeBeau**

The insidious loud ticking of what sounded like a half dozen clocks drove Jean-Luc LeBeau from his study late in the early winter night. He set his book aside and left his night cap untouched and ghosted up the stairs towards the bedroom of the maison's newest occupant. The interference to the LeBeau mansion's almost impenetrable and restful silence could only come from one source: little Remy.

As he moved on cat silent feet down the hall towards the ten year olds bedroom the sound of clock work and ticking grew louder and more grating on the nerves. He pushed open the door without knocking as a quiver of alarm ran through his frame.

Jean-Luc LeBeau found himself in a quandary as he stared into the room. He instantly found himself faced with a situation that both unnerved and perplexed him and he was by no means sure how to best resolve it to the satisfaction of all.

For more years than most people lived he had been patriarch of the New Orleans Thieves Guild, one of the oldest and most respected guilds in America. He had founded his reputation on a legacy of consensus building, and a commitment towards lasting peace with the Assassins Guild. The position of eternal temporiser was an uncomfortable one to shoulder, but at least it meant he had developed some very keen negotiation skills. Sadly none of all those time honed skills would help him now.

The ticking and clicking of clockwork and the hiss of electronic timers stabbed into his skull like a migraine but for a moment all he could do was stare dumbfounded. The tiny occupant of the room had yet to notice his presence and for that Jean-Luc was glad; it would not do for the Patriarch to be seen gawking like a slack-jawed yokel.

In fact his position, his many decades of life, and all the power both bestowed, did not help Jean-Luc at all in this particular situation.

Such a position as Patriarch was often fraught with dangers and decisions that, while allowing the Guild to survive another day, nevertheless sunk Jean-Luc's soul deeper and deeper into a quagmire of moral ambiguity. He walked a tight-rope daily over a chasm of compromise and sacrifice and he walked it without fear. He had never been afraid to risk his own self-respect, his own desires, and his own integrity for the benefit of the Guild he had dedicated his life to. There were very few men who could say the same.

Still it seemed highly likely that one ten year old boy might prove to be Jean-Luc LeBeau's ultimate undoing.

'Remy?' He addressed the object of his consternation in gentle voice.

A pair of red on black eyes blinked at him in the otherwise complete velvet darkness of the midnight hour.

'Oui m'sieur?' The child's high unbroken voice had already begun to lose the rather nasal New Orleans yat and develop a pleasing French lilt to the listening ear. Henri had grudgingly admitted that little Remy had something of a savant's touch for languages, despite being, in most other respects, as wild as an unneutered tom cat.

Jean-Luc tapped his fingers on the doorframe of the bedroom Mercy had taken considerable time and effort in preparing for the ten year old as he pondered his next move. He considered the sight before him with a thief's excellent night vision and his worry grew more intense. He found himself dearly wishing for Mattie Baptiste's presence right now. The Guild's healer and wise woman would know what to do.

Remy sat on the floor of his bedroom in the darkness, his eyes glowing steadily with some internal luminescence, penned in by a ring of wrist watches, stop-watches, pocket watches, carriage clocks, wall clocks, and time pieces of all shapes and sizes. The disparate ticking of the multitude of clock faces was louder than the song of the cicadas in the height of summer.

Jean-Luc pursed his lips when he recognised the gold fob watch with chain he had given Henri as a coming of age gift many decades before amid the messy circle; the fob watch Remy had been eyeing speculatively since Jean-Luc had brought him home to Bayou St. Clair. He didn't really want to consider where the other time pieces came from, some of which were clearly expensive and many of which were crusted with jewels. As he watched, the little boy he had snatched from the Rue Royale some seven weeks earlier picked up one of the stop watches and carefully re-set its electronic time face.

'Remy, petit, you should be in bed.' He finally spoke but deliberately did not make a move into the room. Remy had yet to learn to trust him fully and until he did Jean-Luc would respect the boundaries the little boy imposed upon unsolicited contact. Even despite his very great misgivings.

The boy stared at him, 'Why?'

Absently the child pulled the soft wool comforter around his skinny shoulders a little tighter; his strange eyes did not hold Jean-Luc's for long. Fearless and brash as a junkyard dog most of the time, Remy was nevertheless extremely deferential, to the point of fear, with Jean-Luc still. To the man who would make this motherless boy his own that fear was a source of great distress, but there was nothing he could do but wait for it to fade with time.

It had been exactly a month to the day since Henri had found Remy in Baton Rouge after the child had run from the house and in that month Jean-Luc had begun to believe that genuine improvements in trust were being made. Perhaps, he now considered regarding the state of the room before him with alarm, the assumption had been premature?

'It's late son,' Jean-Luc knew the tact would not be a success but he had to try.

The boy's eyes darted back up to him and then looked at the small electronic stop watch clasped in his hand, 'It only midnight m'sieur; dat's not late.'

Jean-Luc sighed. 'It is for little boy's who have arithmetic lessons in the morning,' he pointed out trying to sound as father should and knowing the attempt was doomed to failure. A child raised on the streets would never dream of sleeping a full eight or ten hours and would never do so at night when the predators roamed. Jean-Luc knew it would be a long time to train the child out of his street instincts; if it was even possible to do so at all.

Remy blinked at him somewhat blankly and then, with the dignity and disinterest of a cat, turned away from Jean-Luc to continue playing with the stop watch in his hands; essentially dismissing the Patriarch and his foolish notions of bedtime and arithmetic with regal aplomb. If it hadn't been for the horrible ticking Jean-Luc might have smiled at the sublime arrogance in that one action.

'Remy chile, to bed,' Jean-Luc sighed and even though it made him a craven coward he used his trump card, 'Don' make me call Mercy in here.'

Again he received a wide eyed heavy lashed look in a cherubic face and again he was silently and summarily ignored.

Jean-Luc muttered a soft oath under his breath and bestirred himself to enter the room, carefully stepping over a discarded pile of cheap plastic wrist watches to sit down opposite Remy on the outside of the circle of ticking clocks.

'What is all dis for, chile?' he asked softly as the little boy carefully wound a few more of the wrist watches and upturned an egg timer that had run its course.

Jean-Luc couldn't be sure but it seemed to him that the din of ticking clocks had a strange rhythm to it after all. Or not a rhythm exactly, it was more like Remy was deliberately trying to create a wall of noise; a continuous hiss of sound created by many dozens of time pieces all carefully set to eliminate any gap between one tick and another. Remy's intent seemed to be the total eradication of silence between each second of time passing. Almost as if he wanted to seamlessly merge all the ticks and tocks of every individual clock into one swirl of time and motion.

The red eyes stared at Jean-Luc in the darkness, 'Can you hear de tickin' m'sieur?'

'Oui, I hear it.'

Jean-Luc resisted reaching out to pet the boy's dishevelled hair when Remy bit his bottom lip and frowned. The child grabbed hold of a wall clock that still had flowery wallpaper adhering to it (suggesting that Remy had stolen the clock from someone's wall) he flipped the flap at the back of the clock and began agitatedly tinkering with the time set buttons. The boy murmured something too low for Jean-Luc to hear and chewed on his bottom lip as he did so.

'What be wrong Remy?' Jean-Luc reached out delicately to curl a hand lightly around the child's wrist. Remy jerked away instantly and his bottom lip quivered worryingly. 'Got to stop de tickin' m'sieur; got to make time run right.' He muttered not looking at Jean-Luc.

Jean-Luc frowned and reached out to lift the little boy's chin, 'Remy chile, de clocks be workin' fine; you gettin' yoursel' upset for no reason…..'

'No!' Remy exploded into motion without warning.

Jean-Luc ducked with smooth and instinctive ease as the wall clock sailed through the air exactly level with where his head had been a moment before. The little boy, all loose limbed and too thin frame, was on his feet now, fists curled and soap in a sock clutched in hand.

'No you don' unnastan' de tickin' be wrong; it got to run smooth, like a river, not all broken up an' clicky.'

Jean-Luc rose easily to his feet, towering over the little boy who glowered up at him undaunted for once but clearly upset by something.

'Enough chile; you get yoursel' int' bed dis instance.' He pointed for emphasis but the little boy simply shook his head rapidly and dropped down onto his knees in his circle of time.

'Non, got to make it perfect – all smooth and sweet.' The child snapped distractedly voice beginning to wobble with tiredness and agitation. 'Got to make time run right, me; hate de tickin' me, hate de silences an' de noise; Got to make it better,' Remy worried his bottom lip between his small white teeth. 'Time be broken and it don' like it; can hear all de busted seconds screaming – all dat time in between de ticks gon get lost in de cracks. Got to stop de tickin', me.'

The boy continued to ramble on as tears rolled down his cheeks. Jean-Luc reached down and scooped up the bony child into his arms. The ten year old immediately tried to wriggle and kick out against Jean-Luc, used to be hurt in the arms of adults, but Jean-Luc held on. He cupped the back of the boy's head and pressed it to his shoulder murmuring soothing French nonsense into his ear until Remy wrapped his arms around Jean-Luc's neck and sobbed himself to sleep.

'Shhh, mon petit, you be safe now, chile. Ev'ryt'ing be alright now, Remy.'

Despite the gangling length of legs and arms and knobbly spine Remy possessed, Jean-Luc carried him easily in his arms to his bedroom. Settling the boy into his four poster bed the Patriarch then took a chair at the back of the room. He had a thieves' council meeting tomorrow and a number of contracts to ratify, but none of that mattered. Instead Jean-Luc stayed awake the rest of the night watching over the little boy as he twitched in the grip of silent nightmares and wept in his dreams.

The next day Jean-Luc ordered that all the clocks in the house be removed, save the small carriage clock in his bedroom, and he made tacit enquiries into child psychiatrists in the New Orleans Parish area.

Whatever demons haunted the child were much greater and darker than anything he could deal with. Jean-Luc wanted the best for le Diable Blanc, the child who may well lead the Guild to a new golden age and unleash the secrets of the Old Kingdom.

Sadly, in more ways than one, it never occurred to the man to simply ask the boy what it was he saw at night in the darkness behind his closed eyelids.

That oversight would cause more harm than Jean-Luc LeBeau could ever imagine – and most of it would be to Remy himself.

* * *

**2009 – Xavier Institute for Higher Learning **

'I want Gambit's room searched; take up the floor boards, check for wall cavities, and bring me anything you find.'

Cyclops orders were met with some surprise by the gathered X-men, but under the circumstances no one argued. Joseph, Sam, and Logan went to conduct the search; Logan because he would be thorough, Sam because he was as close to completely neutral as any X-man could be, and Joseph because he had no reason to protect Gambit and Scott wasn't feeling too warmly predisposed to the Cajun and his damnable secrets right now.

'Rogue start talking,' Cyclops fixed the southerner with a glare that managed to express itself perfectly across his face despite the obstacle of his visor. 'Explain to me why Psylocke woke up, sought you out in the kitchen and then collapsed again – and while you're at it, you can tell just precisely what it was you absorbed from Gambit in Israel.'

Rogue bit her lip but nodded; no amount of tantrums was going to wash with Scott today and she really didn't feel like trying the man's non-existent patience. Cyclops nodded sharply acknowledging Rogue's acquiescence. He smacked his palm over his comm. badge to activate a communication channel.

'Beast - I want a full report. Is Threnody talking?'

'Indubitably; however I believe that what I have uncovered regarding our erstwhile Ragin Cajun would be best left until Rogue has given her accounting and the search of Gambit's room has been completed.'

Scott frowned, 'Why?'

It was almost possible to envision Beast's ironic smile in the pause before he replied, 'Because it is quite a long story and one that might shed new light on a vast number of revelations my other compatriots may wish to share.'

Scott was not thrilled by this answer but accepted it for the moment; he didn't have time to fight with Hank when he was in enigmatic mood.

'Alright; I'll call you when it's your turn.'

'I shall be waiting with baited breath O Fearless Leader.' Hank sing-songed as Cyclops cut off the transmission.

Scott looked at Bishop, 'Bring the Dark Beast up to the War Room; I want to hear what he has to say.' He fixed the large man with a steady, but obscured, regard. 'I want to hear what you have to say too. You took a long time bringing the Dark Beast back to us.'

And, Scott added silently, you also probably know more about this situation than you're letting on.

Bishop nodded in response to the command without wasting breath on unnecessary verbalisation. He left without preamble Scott appreciated that most of all.

Cyclops slumped into one of the hard backed chairs lining the War Room table and raked a hand through his short brown hair. He closed his eyes behind his replacement visor and rubbed his hands over his face. Across the table from him Ororo settled herself with brittle self-control and Jean came through the door with a tray of hot cocoa, Twinkies, and other sugary confections. Briefly Scott wished for vodka on the rocks as he accepted the cup of cocoa levitated over to his hand by his wife.

For a moment Scott just sipped his cocoa in silence but then he lifted his hidden eyes to Ororo. He sighed and put down his cup. 'I'm waiting Rogue.'

The southerner looked up and stopped nibbling on a twinky. She wiped off her fingers and slipped her gloves back on, putting the twinky back onto the small plate before her on the table.

'Well sugar, what d'ya want ta know?' Rogue boldly met his visored gaze; outwardly she was calm and composed but Scott wondered how long that would last. Scott opened his mouth but it was Ororo who beat him to the punch.

'Did he hurt them?' she asked her voice raw with the tears she would not shed in the mansion. Rogue's eyes filled with pained sympathy; she did not pretend to misunderstand. 'No sugar; he tried ta stop it. Sinister used him and he didn't know what was goin' ta go down 'til it was too damn late ta stop it.'

Ororo nodded jerkily; her lips moved but she could not force her throat to make a sound. The deputy leader of the X-men clasped her hands tightly together on the shiny table top and squeezed until her knuckles whitened. Rogue reached out and placed her gloved hand over Ororo's.

'Ah saw it all, Storm. Saw it as he saw it and it nearly drove me crazy.' Rogue smiled sadly not looking anywhere but at Ororo. After a moment Ororo met the other woman's eyes. Rogue chuckled sourly and shook her head, 'Hell, hon, what Remy saw down there really _did_ drive him crazy; he's spent the last six years tryin' ta put himself back together again.'

'But…' Ororo opened her mouth and Rogue held out a hand for silence; for the first time she looked over to address Scott, Jean, and the silent but watchful Warren in her regard.

'Ah'm only goin' say this once,' she said calmly, 'Ah ain't goin' ta be used ta condemn Remy when he ain't here to defend himself.' She shot a look of green eyed warning at Warren before continuing.

'Sinister had Remy totally screwed up; he knew the man was evil and he knew he was in so deep he couldn't see daylight but he didn't know how ta get himself out. Sinister told him that he wanted Remy ta get him a bunch of nastiest ta do his dirty work,' Rogue shrugged almost diffidently, 'Remy wouldn't kill for Sinister, didn't matter what the bastard did to him he weren't about ta turn killer.'

'So he found other people to do it instead?' Warren curled his lip, 'That doesn't absolve him. Hell it just makes him a hypocrite.'

Ororo tensed but Rogue merely smiled, cruelly, and battered her eyelashes in exaggerated fashion.

'Really sugar?' she asked in simpering saccharine tones, 'Then maybe ya can explain ta me, hon, who died and made ya judge, jury and executioner?' she pressed a finger to her cheek in mocking revelation, 'Oh that's right! It was that big ole fella Apocalypse!'

Warren pushed away from the wall, 'That is a completely separate issue. Apocalypse said he could restore my wings; the wings that the Marauders destroyed!'

'Oh hon that's outright bullshit and ya know it.' Rogue rose from the chair and stepped around the table.

'Ah mean, sure, it musta been awful losing ya wings. But sugar, when ya put on ya uniform and went down inta those tunnels ya made a commitment ta put ya life on the line. Ya had ta o' known that ya could maybe get hurt; ya took the risk and it backfired.' Rogue looked at him sadly, 'ya got ta take some o' the responsibility for that.'

The Mississippian walked forward and invaded Warren's personal space without offering outright challenge, 'There ain't a person in this mansion who don't understand ya pain, or can't understand why ya signed up with Apocalypse for the chance ta be healed.' Her voice was strangely sympathetic as she met Warren's shocked and outraged eyes.

'We don't blame ya for that; or for what ya did when Apocalpyse changed ya inta Death. Everybody is weak sometimes,' Rogue shook her head sadly, 'But Warren why is it that ya're entitled ta make a mistake, ta be weak and do wrong 'cause ya hurtin', but Remy ain't?'

Jean, Scott, and Ororo were all staring at Rogue; shocked by this speech. Rogue smiled sourly as she turned to face the room.

'Ah know ah'm guilty or doin' the same. Remy never claimed ta be a saint,' she laughed ruefully, 'sure he didn't tell me alla what he'd done, but it weren't like ah didn't know he had a dark side.' She sighed, 'Ah couldn't handle just how dark it was and blamed him for it. Ah got ta live with that, ah guess.'

Cyclops was not the only person who stared agape at the woman who spoke those words, because she was not quite the Rogue he or the others in the room recognised. Scott found himself more than a trifle worried about what cataclysmic event had taken place to change Rogue's perspective so greatly over such a short time period. He suspected he really didn't want to know.

Warren meanwhile was going an odd shade of flushed blue in the cheeks and his lips were moving like he was sucking on a lemon. 'It's not the same. My situation is totally different to Gambit's.'

'Why?' Ororo asked coolly taking up the cause, 'Is it because you were born rich and he was born poor? Is it because you are more deserving to have your life restored to what you believe you are entitled to, while Gambit should make do with whatever he is given?'

Ororo rose from the table and fixed her blue eyes like lasers onto Warren and Cyclops was reminded that once upon a time Ororo had received the tributes of a Queen and a Goddess both. Looking at her now he didn't wonder why.

'Are you more worthy of forgiveness, Warren, because your life has been good and just, and your choices clear and simple? Why should Remy, whom you hold in contempt, be held to a higher standard of 'goodness' and moral rectitude than you yourself?'

Warren Worthington stared in open shock at Ororo, 'I can't believe you still defend him. He was involved in the Morlock Massacre. Even if he didn't kill anyone he still….'

'Made a horrible mistake and must pay for it?' Ororo nodded calmly, 'I know this. I accept this and when I know what it is Remy did and did not do, then I will decide whether it is forgivable or not.' A strange smile lit the corners of Ororo's mouth even as her eyes grew glacial cold, 'but you must remember something Warren; Remy is my friend and I owe him much.' A perfect pencil thin eyebrow arched over cat like eyes, 'I cannot say the same for you.'

Shocked silence filled the room at this announcement. Rogue studiously looked down at the floor to hide her smile. It was no secret that Warren's somewhat high-handed attitude towards certain members of the X-men outside the inner five had not made him many friends in the wider team. Rogue, personally, was rather looking forward to watching Warren eat crow over his moral double-standards.

Of course, Rogue acknowledged silently and with no little amount of trepidation, when she next saw the real Remy again, she too would have to take her own big old bite of humble pie - and she might just end up choking on it.

'What _did_ Remy do?' Jean spoke to break the broiling tensions. All eyes flicked to her and the stalemate was broken. She looked keenly at Rogue. 'He must have suspected that hiring the Marauders, if he did that, could only be bad news.'

Rogue sighed and returned to her seat. She waited for Ororo to seat herself again before reluctantly airing Gambit's biggest secret.

'Sinister told him he had enemies that might attack his bases; the Marauders were supposed to be a security squad – at least that's what he told Remy, and Remy went out and found Sinister the bodies to fill that role. The Morlocks came later.'

'Remy founded the Marauders?' Jean asked in shock.

'Yeah, except Grey Crow,' Rogue looked up, 'Or Scalphunter ah mean. He was the one who sold Remy out ta Sinister in the first place so ah guess he was always a Marauder. Remy found the rest o' them though.'

Rogue hesitated looking down at the table top as she doodled strange, curling patterns across the surface with a gloved finger. 'Sinister ordered Remy to infiltrate the Morlocks to find out more about them, and how they ended up in the tunnels; Sinister didn't like them being there.'

'Infiltrate?' Ororo asked in a small voice.

Rogue nodded without looking up, 'Oui,' she whispered seeming completely unaware that she had slipped into French, 'Sinister wanted to collect samples and things to work out their genetic lineage. He told Gambit to find out about how the Morlocks lived and operated.' Rogue glanced up briefly to meet Ororo's eyes, 'Remy spent about a month living down there with the Morlocks.'

Ororo had grown pale and her features were so drawn that her cheek bones protruded harshly. Rogue continued to bow her head over the table top and her voice trembled as she forced another person's confession from her own lips.

'Sinister kept changing the instructions; first he told Remy that it was a fact finding mission only, then he wanted samples, then he wanted Remy to set up an ambush so the Marauders could grab some of the Morlocks for testing in the lab.'

Rogue's breath hitched and she had to take a moment to collect herself, fingers flexing over the table in a mannerism that was not her own.

'Remy argued with him. He told Sinister that Callisto would be willing to offer samples or even Morlocks for testin' in return for medical supplies and stuff. Remy said he could even convince some of the more powerful Morlocks to join the Marauders; that they'd be happy to do it if it meant getting out of the sewers.'

Rogue swept a gloved hand over her face to wipe away tears; her hair fell forward obscuring her face from view. 'Sinister kept saying no. He kept saying he didn't need to negotiate with inferior specimens when he had the Marauders. He kept hinting that if Remy didn't play his part he'd end up in the lab again himself.'

Rogue lifted her tear stained face to the light and none of the X-men present were surprised to see black and red eyes instead of green and white. Those eyes unerringly sought out Ororo's.

'He was just so scared, Stormy. Nothing he did could get him out from under Sinister's control. It was like the man knew him better than he knew himself, and even when he tried ta do the right thing, like refusing ta kill anyone, Sinister took advantage of it by makin' him gather the Marauders. He couldn't take it any more and there was no one ta help him. Grey Crow had betrayed him ta Sinister in the first place and his Papa threw him out o' his home. He was just so scared and he just wanted ta get away.'

Rogue stopped talking abruptly and buried her head in her arms, which were folded across the table. Her back was wracked with choking, but muffled, sobs. Ororo turned her face away; in body language and inflection Rogue's actions were a mirror of Remy's. It was not truly Rogue who wept, fists clenched upon the table, but Gambit, and Ororo could not watch it. Silently she began to cry as she stared vacantly at the cold sterile walls of the War Room.

'He gave in, didn't he?' she asked in a whisper, 'He gave in and surrendered to Sinister's wishes.'

Rogue lifted her face and her blood shot eyes were her own again; she nodded. 'He knew it was wrong and evil and unforgivable. He knew that what he was doing would damn him. It was evil and cowardly ta hand over the Morlocks ta Sinister's just ta save himself.'

Her eyes sought the safety of the table top again and her voice was a bloodless whisper.

'He was just so scared and when Sinister said he'd let Remy go after he set up an ambush for the Marauders and led them inta the tunnels….'

Rogue trailed off unable to finish as her tear sparkling eyes stared off into a middle distance filled with memories that were not hers. It didn't matter however as everyone present knew what had happened and what had resulted from Gambit's moment of supreme weakness.

'Jesus,' Scott let out an explosive breath of pent up frustration, 'That was it? That's the dark secret?' he demanded, 'This is the thing that even Charles believed should be hidden from the rest of us?'

Rogue blinked at him puzzled and Ororo wiped at her eyes before frowning in confusion at the exasperation in Scott's voice. Warren remained truculently silent leaning against the wall, though in truth he was thinking hard, not just about what he now knew of Gambit but also what he now knew of how the rest of the team viewed Warren himself. It was a lot to think about and none of it good.

Scott thunked his fist down on the table top in annoyance. 'Damn it; we could have fixed this.' He swore quietly, 'Yes what Gambit did was bad. It's a fucking mess; especially considering how many X-men were hurt in the massacre, but Christ, it's not like Gambit's crimes are out of character with some of the rest of the team.'

'Scott?' Jean reached out to touch his wrist and Scott impulsive clasped her hand tightly as he took a breath and gathered himself.

'Jean I just don't understand why Charles didn't come clean about this. If I'd known what was going on in Gambit's head I could have done more to fix it. I'm team leader; I'm supposed to be in charge. How can I do that when I don't know about fundamental problems in the Team?'

'Remy was never a 'problem' to the team.' Ororo argued instinctively. Warren made a somewhat disparaging noise from behind her back. She glared at him and Scott leapt into the breach before tensions could simmer out of control.

'Storm, you know that's not true.' He pointed out with strained patience, 'I'm not saying that Gambit didn't pull his weight, I'm not saying that Gambit was anymore a problem than Rogue can be at times, or even Wolverine or Psylocke; the difference is I know how to manage those three. Clearly, considering all that's happened, I never knew how to manage Gambit. Mostly because I didn't know what the problem was to begin with.'

Jean watched him keenly, 'What was the problem?'

Scott looked briefly at Jean, squeezing her hand in his once more, 'He didn't know what he was atoning for.' Scott said meditatively thinking as he spoke.

'Gambit has been carrying around this enormous load of guilt, probably made worse by the fact that his best friend and only real confidante is the ex-leader of the same group of people who died because of his bad decisions.' He added dryly nodding to Ororo.

Scott was thinking hard as he thought. 'But he doesn't know what he's guilty of; is it the crime he committed, or the one that he didn't even know would happen until it did? That's what he doesn't know and that's why he can't deal with it.'

Scott broke off to look at Rogue, 'If I'm understanding this correctly, right up until the moment the Marauders started slaughtering the Morlocks Gambit thought he was involved in a kidnapping, not a massacre, right?'

'Yes,' Rogue whispered through a tight throat.

'Right,' Scott rubbed at the deep grove that had formed between his brows, just over the bridge of his nose as he continued, 'Okay; so let's assume that Gambit is feeling guilty about selling out the Morlocks to a man he despises, but he's also decided that he'll do it if it means he can be free. He's wrong and he knows it, but he's desperate so he'll live with the consequences. Except that it turns out what's really happening is so much worse than he could have imagined.'

Scott paused again to find he had the rapt attention of his small audience. Scott pursed his lips and considered. When he sat down in the War Room he had been furious, wrestling with a sense of deep betrayal. As far as he was concerned Gambit had lost the benefit of understanding when he turned on the X-men. It was strange therefore that now, through using logic and basic cause and effect rationality, he found it surprisingly easy to understand Gambit.

For the first time Scott Summers realised that Remy LeBeau was not really any different from him. He was not some mysterious, sinister enigma, with a lifestyle and passions beyond Scott's comprehension. Gambit wasn't a sentinel, or random villain, and thus Scott did not have the liberty of disregarding Gambit's motives and condemning him.

'So to summarise,' Scott murmured warming to his narrative, 'Gambit's been thrown out of the only home he's ever known. He can't see his wife on pain of death; he's basically alone with no one to give him any advice or guidance. So he does what he's been trained to do: he steals things. Then one day something happens and he's hurt. He's suddenly vulnerable and can't control his powers. Sinister comes along and takes advantage of that.'

Scott shook his head and found himself suddenly and powerfully thankful that it wasn't in Sinister's best interests to grab Scott and try to control his powers. Never before had he ever found himself grateful that he still could not control his powers. Not really focused on the other X-men in the room Scott continued to follow the chain of events that now seemed blindingly simple to their natural conclusion.

'Sinister experimented on him and tortured him into submission, but there is still some part of Gambit that wants to fight for his freedom.' Scott thought out loud meditatively unaware of the three other X-men riveted by his narrative.

'He's a thief so doing 'the wrong' thing isn't the same for him as for me, but he still has standards. There are still things he won't do because they are wrong; Sinister is trying to rob him of everything he believes about himself piece by piece. He's desperate to get away. He doesn't really want to hurt anyone to do it but if it's a choice between him and the Morlocks he's going to pick him.'

Scott nodded his head reaching his conclusions and feeling the constriction of rage and hurt ease as he finally felt like he could understand what was happening and why. 'Yeah; I can see it now.' He murmured quietly.

'I don't know that, if I'd been in the same situation, and hadn't had Charles and Jean, Warren, Hank, and Bobby to support me, I wouldn't have done exactly the same thing.'

'No way Scott,' Warren spoke up angrily, 'There is no way you would do something like that.' He made a chopping motion with his hands as if to erase and eradicate the mere thought, 'You don't have to compare yourself with the Cajun; you're nothing like him.'

Scott smiled just a little, 'Why not? We have a lot in common actually.'

He glanced sideways at Jean but knew she couldn't see it, 'I mean think about it. We're both on Sinister's favourites list; we both have failed marriages under our belts.' His humour faded instantly. 'The big difference is that I was lucky enough to always have good advice and strong support around me.'

He raised Jean's hands to his lips and kissed the back of it without looking away from Warren, but he felt the answering swell of Jean's love for him through their link.

'When I had doubts, or wanted to take the low road, I had someone there to stop me. From what I can tell Gambit has usually only had people around trying to force him to do things he doesn't want.' Scott shook his head ruefully and glanced at Ororo as something occurred to him for the first time, 'I wonder if anyone ever asked Gambit if he _wanted_ to be a thief when he grew up?'

A small smile was twitching the edges of Ororo's mouth and her eyes had lightened. Something like sweet relief washed thorough the regal woman's body. Rogue looked similarly relieved at how Scott was taking things.

'It seems to me,' Scott continued in the firm but even voice he used for command, 'that the only adult decision Gambit's ever made, without coercion of some sort, was to be an X-man.' Scott touched the comm. badge on his belt almost absently as he spoke.

'Considering how dangerous that could be for someone with his secrets Gambit has to have really wanted to be here. It has to have meant something to him to fight with us. It was choice he made despite the risks; maybe the only choice he's ever made of his own free will.'

'Then why did he leave honey?' Jean asked thoughtfully, 'Why decide suddenly to throw all that away?'

'Because he thought he'd lose it anyway, sweetheart.' Scott glanced at her and then to Ororo. 'Just like the two of you said. I understand that now. Gambit knew we didn't know about the massacre.'

Scott tapped his fingers on the table top as he reasoned things out, 'If I were him and I knew I'd made a commitment to the X-men, but that we hadn't made a commitment to accept him, because we really didn't know what we were accepting into our home, I'd be constantly waiting for the day I was given my marching orders and booted out.'

Scott laughed hoarsely, 'Damn it,' he smiled thinly and cupped his face in his hands, 'No wonder he wouldn't let any of us close to him. It would have made it worse when we found out the truth; especially since Bishop was already calling him a traitor. If he'd gone all out to make friends but still kept his secrets, it would have looked like he was deliberately ingratiating himself like some sort of spy or fifth column. If he kept us at arms length and made sure we didn't much like him to begin with he couldn't be accused of any of that.'

A thoughtful silence filled the room; Warren pushed away from the wall and sat down at the table resting his elbows on the surface. 'So you're saying he wanted to be caught?'

Scott shook his head. 'Who knows? I think Gambit wanted to make amends more than anything else, but there has to be a part of him that wanted to be punished too. Maybe subconsciously he was setting himself up?'

Scott shrugged, his obscured gaze briefly lighting on Rogue when he said that last, but thankfully the Mississippian could not see the look he gave her. 'Mostly I think Gambit just wanted help but was too scared to flat out ask for it.'

'Charles was helping….' Jean began but Scott shook his head and she fell silent. She was already picking up Scott's thoughts and considering them as he spoke them aloud for the benefit of Rogue and Warren.

'No Jean, Charles was covering up for Gambit; not helping him.'

Scott glanced at Warren, 'Betsy may have been right; it would have been better to insist Gambit tell us his secrets, or at least for Charles to tell _me_.'

Scott sighed, 'I could have worked through it with him. Helped him see what he should be guilty about and what he couldn't have changed. Maybe if Gambit had had that other perspective he could have worked better with the team; he might have been less cagey, less afraid of admitting his true skills, because he had someone else to be his moral compass. Instead all Charles did, by keeping his secret, was convince Gambit that there was no way any of us could accept or judge him fairly.'

Warren pursed his lips thoughtfully, 'So you're saying Gambit basically viewed the lot of us as enemies in waiting? And what, because he was convinced we'd despise him anyway he just thought "what the hell" and went back to Sinister?'

Scott smiled sourly, 'I'm pretty sure his plan is to kill Sinister, but the "what the hell" bit seems right. Gambit said it himself back in Illinois: he doesn't think he has anything left to play for except getting back at Sinister.'

'But surely he doesn't think he can actually kill Sinister?' Warren insisted. 'That's pure suicide!'

Rogue, Ororo, Jean and Scott all stared at Warren.

'Yeah sugar,' Rogue drawled with acid sarcasm, 'That's kinda the point.'

* * *

**Gambit's Room – the Mansion**

'Y'all should come see this.'

Sam Guthrie stared into the hole revealed by pulling up one of the floorboard in Gambit's old room. As Wolverine and Joseph crowded close he pulled out the simple metal wind up alarm clock from the crawlspace cavity under the floor boards. There were other clocks under their and Sam dutifully began to pull as many free as he could through the hole he had made.

'What the hell?'

Wolverine squatted down and picked up one of the clocks; the minute and hour hands had been removed and all that remained was the second hand on each of the clocks. Some had stopped working but others continued to whirl around the vandalised clock faces trying to mark the passage of time each second at a time.

'Sirs' there's got ta be a couple dozen of them under here.' Sam pried up another board to reveal a cache of cheap wrist watches linked together like a nest of coiled snakes. He pulled them out as a balled lump. 'Ah didn't know Gambit liked clocks all that much.'

Joseph frowned and glanced around at the coldly impersonal walls of the room. There was not a single time piece, save one generic electric alarm clock on the bedside table that most likely came with the room, anywhere in view.

'What sort of person keeps dozens of clocks under his floorboards?' he demanded.

'Clocks with only a second hand, sir,' Sam pointed out before shrugging diffidently, 'But mah mama always said it takes all sorts ta make a world; if it don't hurt no one then it don't hurt no one.' He said solidly.

Logan snorted dryly but refrained from comment. He looked over the volumes lining Gambit's bookshelf and noted some of the titles in Arabic, Chinese, French, English and even a Japanese prima used as a bookend.

The Cajun's DVD selection ran high to sci-fi with Original Series Star Trek and the re-make of Battlestar Galactica vying for space against boxset's of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Simpson's compilations. A few unusual documentaries broke-up the geek fest vibe and suggested that Gumbo had both a brain and a social conscience deeply buried under the layers of misdirection. Gambit's cd collection was equally numerous and even more eclectic in the tastes it showed. Everything from pieces of Classical music to Johnny Cash and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, sat beside obscure Zydeco bands and the greats of Jazz and Blues. The rock and roll heroes of the fifties made a good showing with the notable absence of any Elvis, and there was also a wide selection of world music compilations that spoke to Gambit's globe-hopper mentality.

Logan made a mental note to appropriate some of those cd's if it turned out the Cajun wasn't coming home to reclaim them. He wondered what Cyke thought would be gained from rooting through the Cajun's things; all they were going to find was what Logan had always known – that the Cajun wasn't what he pretended to be but what he actually was, remained as much a mystery to Gumbo as it was the rest of the team. He picked up Gambit's discarded laptop from the bottom drawer of his desk and shifted it under his arm for transport; Gumbo had left in a hurry and might not have wiped the hard-drive before he went.

'C'mon kiddies, let's report back to uncle Cyke.' He jerked his head towards the door.

'What should we do about the clocks?' Joseph demanded, 'There appear to be clocks filling every spare inch of space under the floor boards of this room.' The amnesiac mutant tilted his chin and folded his arms across his chest. 'That is clearly not normal.'

Logan curled his lip, 'Ain't a onna o' yer here that's normal bub; we're X-men, we ain't supposed t'be normal.' He snorted a laugh, 'Ain't supposed t'be all that stable either and it don't take a genius to know Gumbo ain't never been hinged all that tight.'

'But should we take some a' these clocks with us, sir; they might be a clue.' Sam asked politely holding up the ball of linked wrist watches in his hand.

Logan shrugged, 'Might as well,' He quirked an eyebrow, 'And don't call me sir, kid. I don't like it.'

Sam nodded his head a little too rapidly, 'Right ya are, sir.'

Logan growled and Joseph's lips quirked into a slight smile. Wolverine jerked his meaty thumb behind him to the open doorway.

'Get outta here Guthrie.' He mocked snarled and Sam scurried, grinning, out of the room. Joseph cast a suspicious glance over the room once more before following at more sedate pace.

Logan shook his head dismissively and walked out of Gumbo's room, the Cajun's laptop under his arm. He closed the door behind him without once looking at all the clocks staring up at the ceiling with their mutilated faces.

The sonorous murmur of fast paced ticking filled the silent room like the buzz of locusts as soon as the door was closed.


	32. Chapter 32

**Chapter Thirty-One: Regression**

_A/N Hello everyone, just like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has reviewed and read this story and helped make it such a success so far. Also a quick note on something in this chapter; I know that top secret money transfers to assassins would not be as obvious and easy to trace as it is here, but for the sake of simplicity just suspend your disbelief and assume that Remy made a bit of a boob along the way – he's under pressure, people! ;)_

* * *

**The Garden**

The woman seated on the orange plastic chair using a green Crayola crayon to draw on a square piece of red construction paper at the small Formica table in the small white room crowded with roses was the most captivating woman Remy LeBeau had ever seen.

He sucked in his breath and dropped to his knee's beside the holographic projection feasting his eyes on every almost life-like detail.

'Is dis….?'

'Yes,' Essex stood in the doorway of the small room his fingers still splayed over the control dial for the holographic projection. 'This is Rebecca; this is your mother.' As Sinister twisted the dial more details of the room shimmered into life.

Bare walls became plastered with childish crayon drawings and Cuckoo clocks. A bed appeared and a thin, blonde woman, pale and lifeless in sleep flickered into existence. A Felix the Cat wall clock with swinging pendulum tail and sideways moving eyes caught Gambit's attention briefly but none of it was enough to tear him away from his scrutiny of the dark haired woman drawing messy circles over and over again onto brightly coloured construction paper.

Remy's fingers shook as he raised his hand to ghost his palm over the coarse fall of thick hair that tumbled past the woman's narrow, hunched shoulders. The hair was severely shades darker than Remy's own, closer to black in truth, while his hair was threaded with a seam of chestnut. Nevertheless the thick, shaggy lengths, tangling easily as they fell in heavy tresses down her long, tapered back was exactly the same texture as his own.

The hologram lifted her head briefly just as Remy leaned unconsciously forward trying to get a better look at the woman who allegedly gave birth to him. He watched that small, queenly head dwarfed in hair rise to the light and his heart twisted savagely in his chest. The lights shuddered and colours ran together as tears flooded his defences and ran down his cheeks.

Wordlessly Sinister handed him a Kleenex and Gambit didn't even bother to pause and consider the strangeness of it all. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath as Essex solicitously froze the holographic program for him.

Twenty six years of living and in all that time Remy had spent precious little of it wondering about his biological parents; raised on the streets he had never developed a sense of entitlement, so when he gained a foster father and a family for a brief spell, he had considered it an unexpected bonus – not an inalienable right. He had never looked to have a mother to complete the set.

He had grown used to having no roots to call his own; hell he'd spent his entire life drifting aimlessly from one fuck up to another mostly because he'd never belonged anywhere.

Now he stared, blinking back tears, into the face of the woman who carried him for nine months and abandoned him as a new born. It was a moment he would never be able to encapsulate in words; a moment of agony and transcendent joy. He felt like he was being pulled apart at the seams; he felt as if the hollowness inside him was finally filled.

'She looks like me,' He whispered awed.

Essex actually smiled, though Remy did not see it as he was still staring intently at the image of Rebecca. 'I think you have that somewhat confused; it would be more accurate to state that _you_ look like _her_.'

'Oui,' Remy whispered absently as he ran the tips of his fore and index fingers over the line of Rebecca's cheek and watched the holographic image flicker and re-form around the interference. He stared into a heart shaped, angular face that could have been the mirror of his own but for a few minor details.

He noted the same cut diamond cheekbones, the wide slash of a mouth that somehow looked unfinished on his mother's feminine face. He almost smirked to note that this woman had the same high arching, thick and wild brows as he did, and the same hump to the nose that only showed in profile. His mother's chin was sharper and more delicate than his own but his jaw was stronger –what stopped him in his mental tracks, however, and made his heart contract in an apoplexy of emotion he could not even begin to work out, was Rebecca's eyes.

Red on black and glittering with life, laughter, and secrets; even frozen in holographic memory those eyes seemed to burn into his soul.

'Mon dieu,' he whispered hoarsely.

'Yes,' Essex stepped further into the room, 'the eyes were something of an unexpected attribute of Rebecca's mutation; I suspect that those eyes will remain an inherited trait in the family line.' He glanced pointedly at Remy, 'Your own progeny will likely carry the eyes even if they are X-factor negative in every other way.'

Remy was not really listening to Sinister; instead a broad grin stretched over his face. He'd been defined by his eyes as a child, branded because of them, and he knew that the only reason Jean-Luc had taken him in was because of them and some half-assed prophecy no one had ever bothered to explain to him.

Diable Blanc - devil with an angel's smile; he'd risk the pot to bet that his mother had had a beautiful smile.

In that moment Remy LeBeau was not alone, not a devil-eyed freak, but a part of a family with a lineage he could chose to continue to the next generation. His eyes were a tangible, irrefutable link to his mother. For the first time ever he was part of something in a way that couldn't be taken from him; he would always be this woman's child and no one could deny it.

In that moment more changed than could ever be known. Remy found that he didn't even care if this woman had abandoned him, or forsaken him. He didn't care if the woman had been evil or deranged; nothing could take away the simple gift she had granted him. He had a legacy, he had an inheritance, and even if he hated it and would reject it with everything in him, he was from this moment on no longer a foundling without a place or purpose beyond that which others gave him. Today he was someone's son.

Ignoring Essex completely he balled the used Kleenix in one hand, bowed his head in prayer and crossed himself with the other hand. Sometimes the divine could visit hell, after all. Sometimes good could come from bad; he had always believed that and today he believed that even more.

'J'taime maman; merci beaucoup,'

Remy lifted his head and his gaze caught on one of the crayon pictures lining the phantom walls of this simulated room. He rose to his feet, ignoring Sinister, and walked over to the wall. Covering pieces of brightly coloured paper tacked to the wall in garish shades of red, green, orange, and sky blue were the scribbles of a pre-schooler. Except that it wasn't a child who had scrawled a single message in black crayon all over the messy circles.

_dO YoU hEar tHe TiCkInG?_

Standing in this phantom room, boxed in by ghost roses and the spectral ticking of a multitude of clocks Remy LeBeau grinned.

Oui maman, he addressed the dead woman who had written this message many years before silently in his mind, I hear it too.

* * *

**The Xavier Institute**

The War Room was full of X-men; no one wanted to miss a moment of this circus. In one corner, held at gun point by the stoical Bishop, the Dark Beast leered cheerfully at the assembled X-men, his sternum thickly wrapped in bandages. One of the wall monitors had been switched on to show Threnody's face. Unfortunately the woman could not leave the medbay until Hank figured out how to create a mobile, travel friendly, dampener for her powers.

Cyclops, Phoenix, Storm, Archangel, Rogue, Iceman and Beast himself all sat around the table. Psylocke, looking pale but conscious, perched on Archangel's lap. Cannonball stood to attention against the far wall of the room and Wolverine lounged against the opposite wall near the door. Joseph hovered attentively behind Rogue's chair.

The War Room table was crowded with the detritus gathered from Gambit's room, including his laptop and the multitude of wrist watches and clocks. Rogue, with assistance from Ororo, was busy opening up Gambit's email account.

'Anything interesting in there?'

Scott found it hard to believe Gambit would leave some sort of handy confession on his word processor for them all, but it was possible, as none of the X-men, except Ororo and Rogue, had known Gambit even owned a laptop, that he might have left an email trail.

'Well sugar someone calling hisself Jacob Gavin wants Remy's help ta run some kinda scam at a casino in Monte Carlo, and someone called 'Sek' has sent him five emails in two days.' Rogue's frown suggested that this 'Sek' was female and the content of the emails did not meet with Rogue's approval, 'But there's nothin' that shouts out "super secret plot" in here.'

'Storm?' Cyclops turned to the other woman who was leaning over Rogue's shoulder to read Gambit's mail. He noted that her eyebrows had risen into her hair line all of a sudden just before she reached for the small portable mouse and clicked on something on screen.

'Oh.' Rogue's eyes widened in turn, 'Ah, uh, didn't see that one.' She admitted a little embarrassed.

'What is it?' Bobby asked excitedly, 'C'mon the suspense is killing me here.'

Ororo was now frowning, 'There is an email confirming a money transfer from one of Remy's accounts to the account of…..oh Goddess.' She whispered as Rogue sucked in a breath of outrage, her cheeks flaming.

'Five hundred thousand dollars!' she shouted, 'He paid Belladonna half a million dollars!'

Scott was not the only one who sat forward in his chair at that, 'Does it say what the money was for?'

Ororo shook her head, 'No it merely confirms the transfer has gone through and that the next instalment, another five hundred thousand, will be paid to Belladonna Boudreaux by the end of June automatically unless Remy cancels the transfer himself.'

'Jeez, how much money does Gambit have?' Bobby asked in wonder, 'He doesn't have that much in the account _I _know about.'

Jean patted her friend's shoulder consolingly, 'I think it's probably better not to ask; or to ask where he got it all from.' She winked and Bobby laughed.

Logan snorted. 'Think we should be askin' what Gumbo's payin' his wife t'do fer him.' He pointed out laconically, 'Boudreaux's an assassin; assassin's get paid half up front and half on completion of a job.'

Scott frowned, 'You think he's put a hit out on someone?'

Scott could not quite conceal his dismay. He had only just come to terms with Gambit, beginning to feel like he had a handle on the man's character, and now _this_? Gambit was already personally gunning for Sinister – who else did he plan on taking out of the picture?

Logan grinned sharply, 'Think that if I was Gumbo right now I'd want someone I know pullin' down on the trigger if my plan backfires.'

'Meaning?' Cyclops was not the only one watching Logan keenly. The grizzled Canadian shrugged easily and popped an unlit cigar into his mouth, chewing on the end meditatively as he spoke.

'Cajun barely got free o' Sinister the first time; now he's thrown himself back int' the fryin' pan. Gumbo's a gambler, sure, but any gambler knows when t' hedge his bets. Reckon that he's got the wife waitin' with a quick bullet if Sinister fucks with Gumbo's head again and he can't break free.'

'He's put a hit out on himself?' Scott could only stare at Logan who grinned at him around the cigar.

'It's what I'd do, Cyke.'

'Christ,' Cyclops hissed with feeling and running a hand through his short brown hair. He looked up after a moment, 'Storm, Rogue, is there anything else on the computer that might help us?'

Psylocke bestirred herself in Warren's lap before either woman could reply. 'I think I may have something to add.' She said quietly trading glares with Rogue before turning to face Cyclops and the table at large.

'I have seen the core of Gambit's psyche; I know what he holds most dear – and just how far he'll go to protect it.'

* * *

**Bayou St. Clair – Maison LeBeau**

Jean-Luc LeBeau knew he was dreaming; he even knew why he was having this particular dream, but it did not save him. He could not break free of the snare he was caught in. He could not stop the memories.

In dream and in memory he looked down onto a white eiderdown bedspread besmirched with swamp weed, algae, and blood. He looked down onto the body of a woman in her early twenties with a mane of coarse dark hair. He looked into a pair of dead, fixed, red on black eyes.

'Stop dis Fontenelle,' he whispered harshly as the memory-dream folded outward into Technicolor life around him.

He saw his son Henri, almost three years dead in his grave in truth, kneeling beside the bed clutching the limp, wet hand of the dead woman. He heard the panic and the sobs in his son's voice once again and the clarity of the sensation rent his heart in pieces.

'Papa,' Henri choked out as he hadn't in many decades, 'Papa you hav' t'understan' – I only did it for de Guild! She said she could bare me a son wit' devil eyes – she said she could bring forth le Diable Blanc of de prophecy.'

Jean-Luc closed his eyes and placed a hand over his closed lids; his mind and soul rebelled against this horrible invasion of his private pain but for all his outrage he could not wake. Even without his participation the dream continued onwards. He opened his eyes to see his own hands moving forward to brush the waterweed smeared hair from the dead woman's clammy face. He turned her head by the chin so that she seemed almost to be looking up at him.

Such unnatural red on black eyes; the woman would have been a compelling figure in life. Not classically beautifully but undoubtedly attractive; tall and lithe, she had the frame of a panther and her limbs were graceful even in death. A torn and blood stained yellow sundress emblazoned with large red roses clung wetly to her body; in the hand that was not held in Henri's shaking grip her dead fingers had closed vice-like around a crumpled, tattered and soggy scrap of bright red paper.

The woman had been horribly gored; there were deep gashes across her abdomen, her thighs, arms and chest. It looked like someone with very long nails and very large hands had clawed her repeatedly before snapping her neck and throwing her into the bayou.

In his dream Jean-Luc saw himself pull that scrap of paper free of the bloodied and split knuckled hand. He heard the limp thump as that dead limb flopped down on the counterpane of the bed.

Jean-Luc tried to turn away even as the dream body he inhabited against his will carefully unfolded the paper to read what had been scrawled upon it in waterproof green crayon.

_hEnRI…..tHe BluE MAn cAME….gLORia tOOk mY BaBY hOSPital. I nAME hiM ReMY. OuR bABy rEMy. hE dID nOT cRy. hE sMILed aT mE. KeeP yOUr ProMISE hEnrI. _

_ReBeCCa XXX_

'Enough Fontanelle; I'm not gon play dis game wit' you.'

Jean-Luc forcibly took control of the dream body he possessed and turned to stare wildly into the shadows of the sun-soaked bedroom from twenty-six years ago. 'Come out an' face me if'n you want to say some'ting.' He gritted out between his teeth.

For a long moment the only sound was the rasp of his breathing and the faint ticking of the brass alarm clock on the bedside table. Then there was the scent of patent leather and sweat and the click of a metal stiletto heel. Jean-Luc turned to face the middle aged woman who appeared in the shadowed corner of the room.

'What dis be about, Gloria?' he demanded using the woman's given name and not her codename to address the woman responsible for this dream memory.

'What do you think it's about Jean-Luc?' The emaciated peroxide blonde in the black leather corset demanded as she stalked into the room and went to look down at the ghost image of her dead sibling. An expression of dull, grieving pain crossed the woman's haggard face.

'He's in the Garden, Jean-Luc; Remy's in the Garden with father.'

Jean-Luc stared at the woman even as he felt his heart contract in fear and sickness. 'Non; mais non, sacre dieu, non.' He collapsed down into a chair and cupped his face in his hands.

'How – how can dis be?' He lifted his face to stare at the merciless eyed woman before him.

'You failed, Jean-Luc,' the mutant known as Fontanelle stated coldly as a large butchers knife materialised in her thin, gnarled hand. 'First your son breaks his promise to Rebecca…'

She stopped abruptly a look of pain pursing her thin lips at the mention of her sister's name. That pain and hesitation lasted only a moment however. Her dark eyes instantly hardened and she spoke again with the grating coldness of a rusty scalpel.

'Now that that useless son of yours is dead, you must pay the price for your whole family's failure.'

'Gloria – non!' Jean-Luc leapt to his feet to defend himself but knew that in this world the effort was made in vain; dreams were Fontanelle's domain - and she ruled with an iron fist.

'You failed Jean-Luc,' Fontanelle purred like a buzz saw once again as she clicked across the parquet flooring, the frozen tableau of her dead sister and Henri like a frame for her advance. The dream sunlight glinted off the blade of the kitchen knife as she held it aloft.

'You were supposed to keep my nephew safe from father; you were supposed to protect him.'

'Gloria! He was wit' de X-men; he was 'appy! I t'ought him safer dere den I could ever make him!'

The skeletal woman in her leathers and her steel heels stopped before Jean-Luc; her skin was stretched taunt over worn bones and blue veins, fragile and bulbous, pulsed at her temples. The knife did not waver in her grip.

'But now he is in the Garden, far from you, far from the X-men; he is alone, Jean-Luc. Alone with father and the Garden; you FAILED!'

The knife plunged downward.

* * *

**Xavier Institute**

Jean Grey-Summers stared at Betsy Braddock across the table as the British woman finished detailing all she had seen and experienced from her many experiences inside Gambit's mental defences.

'That's not possible; a non-psi shouldn't have the self-awareness to create a mindscape that complex.'

Betsy shrugged one shoulder indifferently, her other arm curled around Warren's shoulders to help her maintain her balance. 'Maybe not, but Gambit does.' She arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow, 'He _has_ been living in a house with three telepaths, Jean. I think he's been taking notes on technique without our knowledge.'

'Wait so ya sayin' that when ah kissed Remy in Israel ah absorbed his psi-shields too?' Rogue was chewing on a lock of her hair and frowning.

'Yes,' Betsy spared Rogue nothing more than a passing glance; the animosity between the two palpable. 'Not only that but subconsciously you began to maintain those shields in your own mind; perpetuating the cycle.'

'So the reason ah couldn't find out the truth o' what ah absorbed until now is 'cause ah had his shields and they were blockin' me?' the Mississippian pressed further, not about to be ignored.

Betsy nodded again but did not look at Rogue at all this time, 'Yes; Gambit's programmed his own sub-conscious like a computer virus. If a foreign agent is detected the inner shields, by that I mean the demonic riverboat and the theatre, come on-line and replicate inside the consciousness of the invading presence.' Betsy almost smiled, 'It's actually incredibly clever and must have taken immense concentration, focus, and practice to create and maintain.'

'He had to have help,' Jean maintained frowning. 'He had to have a telepath help him create the foundation of those shields; it's just not possible for a non-psi to do that on his own.'

Betsy cocked her head quizzically, 'I think he did; I sensed the imprint of another mind on certain parts of the design, but I couldn't ascertain the identity. That information had been locked in Gambit's mind, possibly by the telepath who helped him originally.'

'Alright, for those of us who don't have a Phd in mind-reading,' Bobby interjected before the conversation between the two telepaths became more technical, 'what does all this mean? Gambit's got a movie theatre in his head - what does that even _mean_ for God's sake?' he threw up his hands in mock despair.

Jean sighed, 'Well aside from being fascinating,' she said swiping at an errant strand of deep red hair, 'it does explain why Charles didn't want me or anyone else going near those shields.' She smiled wryly, 'If I know the professor he must have turned cartwheels, metaphorically speaking, when he discovered the complexity of Gambit's shields. They must have absolutely enthralled him.'

'It explains more than that,' Betsy put in, 'It also explains why Gambit acted the way he did.' She looked around the room, 'Mental shielding like that takes concentration and constant work to sustain. If half a person's consciousness is engaged in trying to maintain shields that complicated every moment of the day, then that person is only going to have half a brain, so to speak, to give to other aspects of his life.'

'Meaning that Gambit had the attention span of a senile goldfish some of the time because he was so caught up with his shields?' Robert asked with a bright grin.

Jean laughed, 'I wouldn't have put it that way, but, yes.' She grew more serious, 'It might also explain why he could get so downbeat at times; using his bad memories as a defence mechanism has to be incredibly emotionally draining – not to mention a little masochistic.'

A small silence fell down around the room then and most of the X-men were looking to Cyclops to lead proceedings. For his part Scott Summers struggled to deal with the wealth of information he now had on a man who had been a virtual unknown up until less than a week ago.

'Okay – so let's recap.' He said trying to sound confident and in command. 'Let's consider all we know about Gambit.' He received nods of encouragement from around the room.

'Right so, we know he's more controlled and methodical than he often seems to be, he has to be in order to plot against Sinister and create his shields.'

More nods of agreement from the X-men in the room. Betsy spoke up, glancing down into Warren's face briefly before she did so, 'I can confirm that the remorse, shock, and horror he feels regarding his part in the Morlock Massacre is genuine. I lived it as he did, that sort of mind shattering experience can't be faked.'

'Guilty conscience,' Warren muttered darkly. Betsy ran a hand through his thick golden hair and leaned in to kiss his temple.

'Yes, but a conscience all the same.'

'He is not often honest,' Ororo spoke quietly but commanded the full attention of the room, 'but he is always sincere.' She looked around the room, 'He is often in error, but he loves with complete dedication.'

Rogue nodded, 'He's a snake in the grass, but he tries not ta be most o' the time.'

Logan pulled the cigar from his mouth, 'He's lookin' t'make his peace with the world by takin' out Sinister.' Sharp blue eyes pierced the regard of each X-man in turn, 'A man that wants t'die ain't gonna take kindly t' a bunch of folks rainin' on his parade.'

Rogue snorted, 'Like that's gonna stop me.'

'Yes,' Ororo added her own emphatic agreement, 'It is not his place to decide what punishment he deserves. The Goddess does not take kindly to those who would take their own lives rather than tread the hard road of redemption.'

'A-hem,' Hank cleared his throat and all eyes turned to him, 'If I may interject, perhaps now is the time for Threnody and I to share with you what we have learned in regards our absent, but most intriguing, Cajun compeer?'

Cyclops nodded, 'Go ahead Hank.'

The bouncing blue Beast smiled toothily and looked up briefly at the monitor where Threnody still waited attentively. They shared a complicit look before Hank turned to face the room, blue eyes bright with the twinkle he only got when he had some particularly fascinating titbit of knowledge to impart.

'Well for the sake of good drama I shall come straight to the point: Gambit is Sinister's grandchild.'

The War Room, as one, had only a single response:

'He's Sinister's _WHAT_?'

* * *

**The Garden**

Gambit sat on the cold stone floor of the room that had formerly belonged to his mother and her sister Gloria over twenty years before. The furnishings were gone and the holographic projector had been switched off. The room was dark, cold, and sterile, empty save for Gambit himself and the Felix the Cat wall clock.

Cross legged on the floor, using his folded trench coat as a cushion, Gambit's head was cupped in his palms as he watched that old clock keep time each tail swish and eye twitch after the other. The single tick-tock rhythm was a soothing annoyance to him. His eyes followed the pendulum swing of the cat's tail without blinking.

Sinister had left him alone over an hour ago, muttering something about unnecessary emotional responses to new information. Now all Gambit had to do was bide his time in the real world while simultaneously rooting around in his brain for the mental blocks Essex had placed in there.

Who did the homme think he was dealing with? A locked door was just an invitation to a thief of his calibre.

Gambit smiled to himself; the Garden was talking to him and he was listening.

The clock kept ticking, spitting out bite sized chunks of time like a faucet spat out water. Twist it one way and you had a flood, twist it the other way and you stopped the flow completely; behind his eyelids Gambit could feel the ebb and flow of time and motion. It pushed at him, tickling the stalks of his eyeballs, creating white noise static in his hindbrain.

The Garden whispered her secrets to him over the din inside his brain as he watched the clock ticking and quietly, efficiently, broke the bonds Sinister had wrapped around his thoughts.

Time was a beautiful thing; it was magic. Time and motion, one and the same; he loved and feared this feeling like nothing else in the world. He loved it when he could feel the world moving and turning in his very bones. He feared it to the very core of his being when it felt like he could ignite the air he breathed with a thought. The molecules in the concrete under his butt spoke to him; the atoms in the air called to him. Backwards and forwards, it didn't matter; he was at the very centre of it all. He was the alpha and omega of every action. He was the catalyst and the result.

The ultimate cause and effect; that was him - master of the art of chaos.

He dealt the cards, he shuffled the deck; he could watch them fall, see them go boom. A hundred million seconds of time, a thousand years of thought, or a single eye-blink; it did not matter. Time and motion, it was the same; a perfect whole, smooth as a river, and he knew how to navigate those currents.

Remy LeBeau held up one finger to the air, as if checking the wind direction in this underground room. A broad and self-satisfied grin scythed across his face. He was the prince of thieves and this was the ultimate score.

He touched that single finger to the floor and watched the fuchsia glow spread like ripples on the surface of a pond outward across the concrete; a slight frown brushed his brow as he concentrated. A single line of charge, like a line of dynamite laid across the floor and up the wall, crawled towards the Felix clock.

The last of Sinister's mental blocks collapsed in his mind at the same time the clock exploded; there was no more ticking to hear.

Gambit laughed softly and jumped to his feet. He pulled the trench coat over his shoulders and walked out of the room. Time was his to play with and he was almost ready to make his move.

Sinister had already lost – he just didn't know it yet. As for the Garden, well, la Jardin knew who her true master was, and she'd already welcomed Remy home.

* * *

**Xavier Institute**

'Wait,' Iceman spoke up much to Scott's silent gratitude in the silence that followed Hank's bombshell revelations, 'You're saying that Gambit is related to Sinister; that he's a Sinister test-tube baby?' the dirty blonde pulled a face of obvious distaste, 'Jeez, no wonder Gambit snapped. I'd crack up if I found out pasty-face was my grand-dad too.'

'He does not know.' Threnody spoke diffidently, but clearly and rationally, across the interface linked to the medlab. She frowned, her face much larger on the screen then in real life. 'At least he is not supposed to know; he did not know when he was last under Sinister's control.'

'Explain more about this Black Womb.' Cyclops requested crisply before the X-men could get sidetracked going over the details of Gambit's time with the Marauders. 'Why would my birth give Sinister a reason to,' he pursed his lips, '_abort_ the programme?'

He couldn't quite bring himself to say the word 'murder'; especially not when the murder victims were Sinister's own genetic off-spring. Despite all he knew of Sinister's chilling actions in the past, killing his own children was almost too unconscionable an act to countenance even for the mad geneticist.

Threnody nodded, 'The programme had already lost favour with Sinister and he spent little time in Almogordo throughout the seventies, but when you were born in the early eighties he focused on nothing else.'

She smiled sympathetically at Scott as he reacted to that statement, 'Sinister knew that the eighties and nineties would see the mutant population rise exponentially. He already knew that, with perhaps a few exceptions, none of the Black Womb Eves would be able to breed successfully and so he disregarded the project completely.'

Her expression became intent. 'He had been waiting for your birth, Scott Summers, for a century; everything else, with the exception of the birth of Jean Grey eighteen months later, was merely distraction.'

'But Gambit is younger than me, so there _were_ survivors of Black Womb?' Scott pressed. Threnody nodded but looked disconcerted.

'I am sorry Cyclops; I don't know the details of what happened to the Black Womb and her children. All I know is that Gambit is the only child to be born of one of the Eves; he is the only survivor of the project that I am aware of.'

'Which explains Sinister's interest in him,' Scott nodded in understanding, 'What about this genetic flaw in his mutant powers?' He glanced between the screen and Hank.

'Ah allow me, Fearless,' Hank cleared his throat, pointedly ignoring the disparaging noise his evil doppelganger made behind his back. 'We now know that Gambit's powers have been altered by Sinister's surgeries. The natural elevation of his mutagenic potential is, to be quite frank, terrifying.'

Hank paused tapping his furred and black claw tipped fingers together as he nodded politely to Jean, 'I dare say he could give our dear Phoenix a run for her money in terms of sheer, unbridled, destructive potential.'

'How?' Scott asked for the team, quelling the trickle of fear that tingled at the back of his skull at the mention of the Phoenix. Jean smiled at him; she had long since made her peace with that convoluted part of her nature.

Hank pulled his replacement pair of spectacles from his lab coat pocket and perched them on his nose. 'Gambit's powers work on an atomic and molecular level. He can manipulate the activity in molecules to create combustion, but on a more fundamental level he could also create nuclear fission just by thinking too hard.'

Hank fixed his bright blue eyes on everyone around the table in turn to press home his point, 'On a sub-atomic, near psionic level, Gambit is connected to the potential energy of all matter; or at least the full extension of his powers could grant him that ability.'

'Ouch,' Iceman once again ran commentary, 'and we thought a pissed off Jean could be bad. I do not want to be at Ground Zero when Gambit goes into meltdown.' He paused and winced, 'Although thinking about it I'm not sure the Cajun's got any more screws to lose.'

Hank actually chuckled, 'Fortunately for us all Sinister's intervention permanently excised the portion of Gambit's brain that would allow him to access the highest applications of his mutagenic potential.'

Ororo was frowning, 'Remy was - _erratic_ – when we encountered him in Illinois. Aside from the fact that we do not know his true motives, his behaviour was strange and his powers were clearly elevated above normal.' She pointed out. 'He did not seem fully in control at the time either physically or mentally.' Her lips pursed, 'His moods vacillated wildly and he appeared delirious.'

'It is the flaw,' Threnody spoke up. 'All the Black Womb Eves were affected in some way mentally by their unnaturally enhanced mutations. As I told Dr. McCoy, many were autistic or suffered other forms of cognitive difficulties. They could not relate to the world as normal humans, or even normal mutants, do.'

'Sinister was a victim of his own success, or rather his off-spring were,' Hank explained patiently.

'Think on it this way. Modern twenty-first century Homo Sapien has evolved to live and thrive in the world and environment he is born into. Transport him through time to the age of the Neanderthals and he would likely not survive, despite all the advancements in his evolution compared to his ancient forebears. The foreignness of the environment would kill him faster than he could adapt.'

'So ya sayin',' Sam spoke up from the back of the room, 'That Sinister's daughters were too evolved ta live in today's world?'

Hank smiled, 'Precisely Sam. If the Eves could not communicate or function in the world then they were doomed from the moment of their birth, regardless of their immense mutagenic potential.'

'But Remy ain't one o' those gals,' Rogue pointed out frowning, 'and he manages ta rub along ta get along just fine.'

Joseph arched both white eyebrows behind her back and looked pointedly at all the clocks; he was not the only one around the room to do so, either. 'If I may, I would suggest that Gambit was less stable than he may have led you to believe.'

Rogue frowned up at Joseph and Hank interjected before the discussion could be shanghaied by a lovers quarrel.

'Both Rogue and Joseph make excellent points,' He said swiftly. 'I would postulate that being second generation Black Womb comes with advantages.'

He looked around the table yet again as was his wont when imparting information, 'It is also highly likely, by dint of her survival if nothing else, that Gambit's mother must have been one of the less powerful, but more socially adapted Eves. She likely did not have the severe learning impairments that afflicted her siblings.'

Behind Hank's back the other McCoy shifted a little uncomfortably in his restraints; Bishop glared at him until he relented. The Dark Beast curled his lip and grudging kept his peace; contenting himself with the fact that he had very pertinent information that his counter-part would give his right forepaw to have. Henry McCoy grinned to himself. Oh yes, he would soon command the spotlight.

'Nevertheless given the wealth of new data on Gambit,' Beast continued on, oblivious to his other self's thoughts, 'I would hypothesise in light of his odd fixations that his mutation might affect him in subtle ways.'

Rogue and Ororo frowned as Hank turned to look at both ladies in turn, 'If my lovely compeers do not mind, I would like to pick your brains about the Ragin Cajun dear to both your hearts.'

Ororo cocked her head quizzically but then nodded her acceptance, 'I will answer whatever questions I can.'

Rogue nodded, 'Ditto sugar.'

'I most humbly thank you,' Hank began to clean his spectacles, 'Do either of you ladies happen to know about the genesis of this - _interest_ - in clocks?'

Rogue and Ororo exchanged a look and Storm shrugged gracefully. Rogue looked back at Hank and flapped a gloved hand airily.

'Ah knew all about his floor clocks.' She admitted finally.

'You did?' Ororo blinked in surprise.

'Yeah,' Rogue rolled her eyes, 'We were an item for almost three years, ya know. We did do something other than fight alla the time.'

Bobby grinned, 'You did? That's news to me.'

Rogue stuck her tongue out at her friend and he pretended to make a grab for it. The rest of the room waited expectantly for Rogue to explain and, heaving a theatrical sigh, Rogue elaborated further even though she knew that Remy would be all kinds of pissed off if he found out she was airing _all_ his secrets.

'He did try ta explain it all ta me, but ah just didn't really get it. All ah know is one day he asked me ta help him take up the floor boards in his room so he could line the under floor space with clocks.' Rogue shrugged as if such activities were perfectly normal.

Bobby couldn't quite keep the smile off his face as he asked her, 'Didn't you think that was a bit, well, a bit wacko?'

Rogue frowned at him, 'Bobby hon, ah'm twenty three years old and ah sleep with a teddy bear and a night light. Ah spend more time talkin' ta mah stuffed animals then ah do mos' people; if Remy wants ta line his floor with alarm clocks who am ah ta argue?'

Bobby considered this. He then thought about his extensive collection of Hanna and Barbera cartoons, his Tweety Bird pyjama's and his worrying fondness for the Powerpuff Girls. 'Huh, good point,' He conceded good-naturedly, 'a pathological liar ex-world class thief with a clock fetish is actually pretty tame by X-men standards.'

Rogue nodded, 'Ya said it sugar,' she glanced at Hank, 'The whole thing had ta do with the fact that Remy always knows what time it is, even though he don't wear a watch or anything. That's the reason he never gets jetlag and always knows when sunrise is gonna be, even if we're in a foreign country or something.'

Scott's eyebrows sky-rocketed at this statement and he spoke without thinking, 'If he always knows what time it is, why is he always late to Danger Room sessions?'

Rogue smirked at him, 'Oh Cyke that ain't a mystery; Remy just does it ta piss ya off. It makes him laugh ta get ya all worked up. He say's it's payback for makin' him jump through ya hoops at five in the morning.'

Across the room Logan snorted a laugh and Bobby grinned hugely before applauding the sentiment, 'Hear, hear.' Scott glared at him but the venom was somewhat diluted when Jean had to cover her mouth with her hand to hide her own snickering.

'Scott, honey, you so walked into that one,' She grinned. Scott rolled his eyes but the only two who knew were he and Jean.

Hank was frowning thoughtfully, 'How, precisely, does Gambit know what time it is?'

Rogue shrugged, 'He really did try ta explain it ta me, Hank, but ah don't think he really understood it himself. He said that he always just _knew._ He always knew when a clock was set wrong too.' Rogue grinned, 'Oh lordy did that ever used ta rile him up. He hated it when a clock was even a minute out of sync.' She shrugged, 'If it was an hour out he could cope with it, but if the second hand or the minute hand weren't right it used ta drive the boy ta distraction.'

'Fascinating,' Hank tapped his spectacles against his lips deep in thought. The Dark Beast scoffed in contempt.

'Hardly that, my inferior alter ego,' He purred puffing himself up as all eyes in the room turned to him just as he had desired. 'It simply proves what I had surmised while forcing myself to undergo the humiliation of pretending to be you; Gambit is a chip off the old block, as our dear Psylocke might say.'

Hank frowned but it was Bobby who spoke up in defence of his best friend and against the interloper, 'Hey Bish, do us all a favour and shoot the fur-ball would you? Preferable somewhere painful, like, maybe the balls; not that he's got any.' Bobby's smile was anything but friendly.

Bishop re-adjusted the angle of his gun so that he could fulfil the request. The Dark Beast merely curled his lip contemptuously. 'Now, now, my dear Robert; is that anyway to treat your best friend?' he flashed the younger man a smile full of discoloured razor sharp teeth.

Bobby jumped to his feet beginning to ice up, 'Oh that's it! You are going to have such a case of frostbite to the balls that your dick will drop off, asshole.' He snapped angrily and crudely.

'Hmm and you appear to have an unhealthy obsession with my genitalia; is there something you'd like to tell us all, Robert?'

The real Hank McCoy closed his eyes and shook his head tiredly. He reached out to lay a restraining hand on his friend's arm.

'While I profess myself flattered that you would rush to defend me, Robert, this is not helping matters in the slightest.'

He glared at his other grinning self, 'In fact all you are doing is feeding the ego of the Dark Beast's already inflated self esteem; ignore him and he will shut up.'

The other McCoy's grin grew both wider and more obscene. 'Ah but my dear double, that is the last thing you wish me to do. Especially as I am the only man alive who can furnish you with information pertaining to Gambit's mother.'

Rogue sat up sharply as a ripple of interest and surprise ran through the room, 'Ya know who Remy's mama is?'

The Dark Beast chuckled richly, relishing the power that came from knowing something others did not. 'Why yes, my histrionic and self-deluding Mississippi belle,' he simpered mockingly, 'I know everything there is to know about the late, lamented, Rebecca.'

'Rebecca?' Hank frowned, 'Was that the name of the Eve who gave birth to Gambit?'

'Indeed,' the Dark Beast's smile threatened to engulf his entire grey-blue furred face, 'She would be delighted to find out her son is as duplicitous and neurotic as she was herself.'

'How do you know about Gambit's mother?' Cyclops demanded as the tension in the room teetered on the edge of critical mass.

The Dark Beast was in his element. His yellowed eyes glowed and his smile grew even more self-congratulatory and obscene, 'A simple question, simply answered,' he drawled cruelly. 'I know, primarily, because it was _I_ who murdered her.'


	33. Chapter 33

**Chapter Thirty-Two: Progression**

**The Garden - a subsidiary annex**

'So homme how big is dis place anyhow?'

Walking through yet another nondescript corridor deep under somewhere or other on Earth (he assumed) Gambit was beginning to feel just a touch claustrophobic; would it kill Essex to build his top secret bases above ground - or at least have some kind of window or viewing lenses so that they could at least see the sky now and again?

'As large as it needs to be.' Sinister replied inscrutably and Gambit glared at his back.

'Smug prick,' he muttered darkly. Essex wisely decided to pretend he hadn't heard.

Remy was starting to feel like he was in one of those end of the world, survival horror movies and that when he finally found his way top-side there would be hordes of brain chomping zombies waiting for him. For a moment the mental image of laying into reams of shambolic ambulatory corpses a la Evil Dead with a chainsaw and a deck of cards brought a slight smile to his face.

Of course in reality, Remy's inner party pooper pointed out, it was more likely to be self-righteously pissed off X-men that would assault him as soon as he found his way out of Essex's uber base, but the end result would be pretty similar regardless; Bang, Remy, you dead.

'Okay m'sieur,' he spoke up, trying to align his thoughts and get his priorities right; focus Remy, focus. ''ppreciate you showin' me mon mere and all, but what all dis really about? I'm gettin' a petit bored wit' de magical mystery tour you got goin' on here.' He flapped his hands at their monotonous surroundings even though Sinister had not bothered to turn and look at him.

It wasn't just ennui gnawing at his nerves. Remy was working to a tight deadline too. Deep underground and surrounded by all sorts of strange stimuli Remy had, most disturbingly, lost track of time. And that was something he just did not do; ever. He didn't know if he'd been down here with Essex hours, or days, or even weeks. It was a decidedly unnerving experience. It was almost as if the Garden ran on its own temporal course; a closed circuit of time that operated outside of the flow of the rest of the world.

If that was true then he could be in trouble - or not – it really all depended on whether he'd guessed right about Essex and the Garden. Remy was enough of a realist to know that he was rarely ever right about anything – but having no real clue what was going on had never stopped him before and he'd be damned thrice if he was going to let a little thing like complete ignorance get in his way now.

'Patience is a virtue, LeBeau.' The Scientist finally turned to look over his shoulder and give Remy an amused look. Gambit stared drolly back.

'An' we bot' sinners,' he pointed out sharply, 'Cut de crap homme an' get to de point. You wan' somet'ing from me; I wan' to know what it is so dat I can laugh in your damn fool face an' tell you to rot in hell dat much sooner.'

Sinister stopped before another of those damnably thick bulkhead doors at the end of the corridor. The homme quirked one eyebrow and the red diamond on his forehead emitted a faint pulse of red light.

'And I used to think you were insubordinate when you first served me. The X-men have not been good for you, LeBeau. Six years ago you still retained the precious little sense you were born with; now you have less and are louder with it.'

Remy smirked with insouciant distain, shrugging casually, 'What can I say, homme; older an' stupider me.' He winked at Essex irreverent to the end, 'Bad genes, oui?'

The sociopathic geneticist shook his head, dismissing Gambit and his sardonic defiance without a word. He placed his palm over the door release controls; with a swoosh of hydraulics the door rolled clear and opened up into, oui, you guessed it, _another_ corridor.

Gambit groaned, 'Seriously homme, you need to get you some home decorators in; dere no sensible reason to have dis much hall space.'

'Shut up LeBeau.' Essex swept through the doorway into the new hallway.

Remy grinned at Sinister's back but kept his mouth shut. It seemed safest to at least appear to be obeying commands; he didn't want Essex to know that he'd already wriggled out from under the mental blocks. He looked about him at this new hallway as he crossed the threshold.

'Well at least you diversifying a lil', non?' He murmured absently as he shielded his eyes from the ambient red glow coming from the shiny and angled walls of the triangular passageway; his lips quirked in another smirk.

'Nice colour scheme; you really got de ominous an' bad-ass vibe goin' on, homme.'

Sinister continued to ignore him – but Gambit had never let a lack of audience participation slow him down before and he wasn't about to now. He continued to look about him, not that there was much to see.

'You going for de whole set o' geometric shapes, huh? You got you de classic square, now you got you triangles – what next? I done heard dat circles are in this year, or oblong mebbe, eh?'

He looked up at the pointed ceiling, forming the arc of the triangle where the floor was the base. Gambit frowned; there was something worryingly familiar about the thrumming energy running through the shimmering pinkish-red walls. He ignored that nagging itch at the back of his mind in favour of teasing Sinister – seriously, what were the chances he'd have this opportunity again, right?

'Ah oui, I get it!' He crowed brightly and for a moment it looked almost as if Essex winced, 'you doin' a homage to ole blue lips, non? Goin' mock Egyptian pyramid, yes? T'inkin' mebbe your old boss go easy on you for runnin' out on him if'n you give him a lil' taste o' home?'

Essex's shoulders seemed to have hunched a little as he walked and his strides had quickened as if he was trying to out pace Gambit. Remy smiled contentedly; ah oui, monsieur, quake in terror at the endless snappy patter of Remy LeBeau. I can keep this up for _hours_.

Biting his bottom lip to keep his snickering in check Remy studied the walls a little more keenly. He stopped walking and flexed his fingers meditatively. Knowing he was probably going to regret it even as he did it, Gambit reached out and touched his fingers to the sloping walls on either side of him.

All along the corridor the glowing energy cascading through the walls reacted to the touch of his fingers like a completed circuit; in a searing flash the walls pulsed burning white for an instance.

'Shit,' Remy hissed with feeling as he pulled his hands back, fingers tingling and glowing a sympathetic fuchsia to match the pulsating walls as they returned to normal. He looked sharply over to Essex who had stopped a few paces ahead of him.

'You connard,' Gambit did his best to portray anger suppressed by mental barriers in his words and stance as he stared from Essex to the power throbbing corridor closing in on him. 'Dis is my power; dis energy – it's de same as my charge!'

Sinister smiled and inclined his head, 'As I told you before, thief, the tissue I extracted from your brain was put to good use. I have found many applications for your brain tissue beyond the tesseract technology.'

Bingo!

Gambit's eyes widened but he held on to the façade of his repressed anger even as a surge of pure savage triumph lit within him. Yes! Ah mercy Dieu; he had been right – mon Dieu – he'd actually been right. Who'd have thunk it?

'What you done homme?' he demanded disingenuously, 'How'd you make dis happen?' he gestured wildly, and a tad melodramatically, at the glowing fuchsia walls. It was probably better to over-act at this critical moment instead of under-doing it and tipping Sinister off.

Essex was clearly feeling full of himself – and when he was on an ego trip the homme liked to talk. Sometimes Remy suspected Sinister had gone to the Saturday matinee school of villainy; it was a crying shame the homme didn't have a moustache to twirl.

'The Garden requires a core processor far more advanced than a mere computer; the Garden requires a mind – one suitably evolved to process the information stored herein.' Essex gestured airily to encompass not just this hallway but all the Garden.

'Once I had thought Rebecca would serve that purpose.' Essex smiled, 'But I have found that your mutated brain chemistry is far more suited to the task than your mother ever could have been.'

Inwardly Gambit started hooting with pure, furious joy; not understanding what Essex was talking about and not needing too. All that mattered was that he'd guessed right and Sinister had just handed Remy the weapon to use to destroy him.

You're _mine_ fucker, Gambit thought fiercely. I fucking knew it! I knew there was a reason this whole place seemed familiar to me. Outwardly Gambit played the outraged fool with consummate skill; he whipped out a brace of cards, charged them, making the walls flash white once more in sympathy, and advanced menacingly upon Sinister.

'What?' he yelled, 'What did you do, Essex?'

Ah oui, if there was an award for over acting in the mutant community he would be a shoe-in for the prize. If Remy had any room for embarrassment in his tattered soul, he'd sure be red faced after this performance - eh, whatever, if it works why fix it, non?

'You used my _brain_ to make your Garden?' he demanded through his teeth; there was no harm in getting confirmation of the facts, after all. Plus Sinister would expect what the homme would no doubt call an "emotionally overwrought and unnecessarily aggressive" response from him. Well, what the homme wants, the homme gets.

Gambit jerked his arm back as if he was about to hurl his cards at Sinister; the walls were strobing light like an epileptics' worse nightmare all around them. It was beginning to give Remy a headache but it looked impressive as hell, casting long, distorted shadows in hellfire red and jet black up and down the angular corridor.

'You gon pay for dis homme,' Remy bit the inside of his lip so his smirk didn't ruin his look of furious indignation. It probably didn't say much for his basic character (or sanity) that there was a part of him thoroughly enjoying this charade.

Essex gave him a long, patient look, completely unfazed by his theatrics. 'Put down the cards, LeBeau.'

He commanded in the flat bored tones of a man who expects instant obedience. Promptly Remy dropped the de-charged cards, contriving to look shocked at his own actions. Sinister nodded, pleased.

'Good. Now enough with the theatrics; it is time to put you to work.'

Without further ado Sinister turned back around and started moving forward towards the end of the hallway again. Gambit allowed his smile to break free once he was sure Sinister couldn't see it.

Ah monsieur, you have no idea how right you are.

The Garden's got my brain; ah homme you are _so _screwed. Everybody knows I can't be trusted; cold blooded snake me, and you not going to see this snake coming when I strike. Gambit's smile would have made Eve run screaming the other way in Paradise but still Sinister did not look away.

Ah, the arrogance of an egomaniac sociopathic semi-immortal geneticist with a god complex, you just can't beat it.

Remy reached out to touch fingertips to the walls on either side once again; power kissed the pads of his fingers in a loving tingle. He could hear the Garden's subliminal laughter through his fingers, dancing along his nerves, racing towards his thoughts.

He and the Garden were one and the same; created for each other by the egotist who prowled through these halls like he owned them. Gambit almost felt pity for the homme, but it did not last. He watched Sinister's back the way a leopard will crouch in camouflage by a watering-hole waiting for the antelope to bend its neck to drink. Essex wasn't quite there yet, not vulnerable enough, but Remy was patient; he could wait.

He wasn't worried really, not even the X-men could stop him now, after all. He'd already won the pot, now all that remained was to show his hand. Joy percolated through his veins, making him almost giddy. For the first time in way too long Remy LeBeau was happy. That he was happy because he was contemplating the total destruction of someone else's existence was a small, trivial fact, which could be ignored. What mattered was that he was at the top of his game and had no intention of being magnanimous in victory.

Retribution was coming, and for Essex, it would be nothing less than total annihilation.

* * *

**The Xavier Institute**

'You murdered Gambit's mother?' Hank McCoy felt sick as he stared at an mirror image of himself so horribly twisted he could barely see the similarities.

The other McCoy grinned hugely, taking pride in the silent shock he had evoked in the gathered X-men. 'Indeed. My only regret is that I did not manage to track the manipulative harlot down until hours after she had birthed her bastard whelp.' The smile grew even more maligned, 'The woman gave birth in a derelict shack in the middle of a swamp; Gambit is indeed a "swamp rat".'

Rogue moved. No one saw her move, she was so damn fast, and so no one caught her in time. She wrapped one arm around the Dark Beast's neck from behind in a head lock and fisted a gloved hand in the tufted, matted hair on the top of his huge skull.

'Start talkin' or ah'm gonna pop ya foul head right offa ya shoulders.' Rogue smiled sweetly through a row of pearly white teeth into the Dark Beast's ear. Even Logan would have been hard pressed to out-feral Rogue at that moment.

Still restrained by shackles at wrist and ankles and with Bishop's gun still pointed unerringly at his chest the other McCoy lost his smile rather swiftly. Rogue jerked her arm under his chin and he choked.

'Ah'm not hearin' any words, hon.' She simpered in mockingly sweet tones.

'I could always rip the truth out of his mind.' Psylocke offered coolly activating her psi-blade and standing up from her perch on Warren's lap. Cyclops waved her down with one hand but did not tell Rogue to stand down.

'Start talking, and fast.' He told the Dark Beast. 'You wanted the floor and now you've got it.'

'Ack! Perhaps you would like…uigggck….to pose a question?' The other Hank McCoy tried to smile but as his throat was being crushed by Rogue's grip he gave up the effort rather quickly. Rogue relaxed her arm braced under his throat slightly but kept a solid steel hold on the back of the Dark Beast's head.

'How do you know of Remy's mother?' Ororo spoke up her eyes hard as ice chips.

'Because that contemptuous, conniving little maven tricked me so that she and her equally odious sister could escape the Garden.' The Dark Beast's yellowed eyes were cruel.

'The Garden?' Cyclops frowned, 'What _is_ this Garden?'

'The greatest repository of genetic data known to man,' All eyes in the room turned to Bishop as he spoke for the first time. The large man's gaze were dark and abstracted.

'In my time it was controlled by the Witness; a source of limitless data and the secrets of not just the mutant, but the human, genome were said to be contained within. It was said, also, by those who knew of it as something other than legend, that it was from the Garden that the cures for many deadly diseases, such as the Legacy Virus, were eventually discovered.'

'Good lord,' Hank breathed out in shock.

Bishop nodded faintly but he seemed to be mostly locked in memories, 'As a child the Witness took myself and my sister to the Garden. It was a place of rare and exquisite beauty, filled with flowers and trees that had been extinct in the outside world for decades.' The usually taciturn and gruff Bishop sounded almost wistful as he spoke of the sights he remembered from that one and only visit to the Garden. The X-men could only listen in silence as Bishop's eyes refocused on the here and now.

'The Witness was a man fond of speaking riddles and cryptic truths; he told me that he stole the Garden from the Devil and had been forced to be its custodian ever since as a penance for his hubris.'

'Goddess preserve us,' Ororo whispered reverently, 'Is it possible that the Garden Remy seeks is the same as the one you saw? Could a being such as Sinister preside over such a limitlessly powerful resource?'

'Of course he can,' the Dark Beast snapped irritated. 'Ever since I dropped into your backwards, primitive dimension some thirty-five years hence, I have been looking for this reality's Garden.'

The Dark Beast's voice took on a meditative tone all its own, 'I knew that Mr Sinister existed here, though not as he did in my world, and I also knew that if I, his greatest pupil, was ever to surpass my tutor, I must do so by taking the Garden from him before he became too powerful.'

'You failed obviously,' Psylocke pointed out adroitly.

'I was betrayed,' the Dark Beast sneered, 'Treachery must literal flow through Gambit's misbegotten veins – his mother had it in spades and it seems to be a familiar sideline for Gambit as well.'

'Is that how you met this Rebecca?' Cyclops demanded before either Ororo or Rogue could speak up in defence of Gambit's character. It was his job to make sure this 'interrogation' reached the facts and did not become mired in insults or misdirection, 'Via the Garden?'

'In a manner of speaking,' the other McCoy curled his lips away from his large, square and yellowed teeth. 'It was Gloria, the sister, who made contact with me first. In fact to begin with I believed Rebecca nothing more than a mute simpleton.' The Dark Beast flexed his stubby, clawed hands in anguish, 'That was but the first of my miscalculations; those mistakes left me running for my life and my genetic marker in Sinister's hands.' His look was murderous, 'All because of that harlot Rebecca and her damned sister.'

'Wait, rewind, there's another of these Black Womb women?' Bobby held his hands up in the time out sign and looked between the 'real' McCoy and the video screen still showing Threnody's face. 'I thought you said that Gambit was the only person connected to Black Womb that was still alive?'

Threnody shook her head hopelessly, 'Sinister did not speak to me of his schemes; all I know is what I was able to find out from the databanks. I am sorry, but I do not know of this Gloria.'

All eyes turned to the Dark Beast who sneered disdainfully but furnished the room with the information all the same.

'Rebecca and Gloria were twins; Sinister and Amanda Mueller's favourites. They were perhaps the only successes of the project. Gloria was a narco-path; a telepath who could only reach other minds in sleep, but whose control over the sub-conscious of her victims was almost absolute. In comparison Rebecca seemed superfluous unless one happened to know just how brilliant and rare an implement her mind was.'

Rogue tugged on the back of the Dark Beast's head to get his attention, 'Remy's got an aunt?'

'Would you let go of me you brute?' The other McCoy rolled his eyes and tried to break her grip on him but when he nearly scalped himself by accident in the process he reluctantly answered the question.

'As far as I am aware Gloria still lives; a hysterectomy resolved the issue of her breeding more of Sinister's brood and she has thus far eluded all my attempts to hunt her down.' Another cruel smile pulled his lips from his teeth, 'Gloria abandoned her sister, with the blood and filth of the afterbirth all around her, to take the baby to safety; without a doubt she signed her own twin's death sentence when she did that.'

Sinister's former star pupil laughed with deep malice, 'Amusing really to find that her attempt to secret the baby away from _me_ led to Gambit spending his formative years eking out an existence on the streets.'

The Dark Beast did not have long to savour the looks of disgust and horror that coloured the expressions of the X-men before a sharp, hot red pain ignited like a flare in the back of his head and he pitched forward unconscious.

The X-men turned to Rogue as one, who in turn merely shrugged angrily, 'Sorry y'all but ah couldn't just stand here and listen t' the man laughin' about killin' Remy's mama.' She looked down at the unconscious but still breathing Dark Beast, 'Ah didn't hit him all _that_ hard.'

Psylocke turned and arched an eyebrow speculatively at Cyclops, 'Shall I psi-probe him now?' she queried in dry voice.

* * *

**The Cemetery of the Chapel St. Jude: Bayou St. Clair – thirty miles south of New Orleans**

Jean-Luc LeBeau stared down at the simple raised tomb made from concrete that held the body of Remy's mother. Only a name was engraved upon the cracked stone; the carved angle lying with arms folded on the top of the tomb had lost the definition of her facial features after years of rain and humidity. Lichen and moss clung to the stone like mould.

Jean-Luc reached out one shaking hand to touch the stone, 'I meant to take him to you, cherie.' He whispered in French. 'It was not my intention to keep the boy in ignorance of his parentage.'

The old man in the young man's body closed his eyes. The tired pulsing behind his eyes that made his hands shake and his stomach roil was all that was left over from Gloria's attack on him the night before. Still he knew that the woman would continue to torment him every night until he either died or Remy returned safe and well.

Remy……

Jean-Luc sunk down onto his haunches in the loamy soil and springy grass filling this backwoods chapel cemetery deep in Cajun country. St. Jude of the lost souls was ironically apt all things considered. Jean-Luc more or less paid for the upkeep of the church and the cemetery single-handedly just to ensure that Rebecca's resting place was kept nice for her. Still he had only visited four times in the last twenty-six years. Some secrets were too bloody and shameful to face all that often.

'I was so angry,' he whispered continuing his confession well outside of the confessional box. This was not the sort of thing to tell a priest, even one in his pocket. 'Henri betrayed the sacrament of his marriage vows to Mercy and not for love, or stupid passion, but because he wanted to _prove_ himself to me. He knew that Mercy was infertile because of the elixir and he believed in the prophecy of the white devil so deeply…..'

Jean-Luc could still remember those moments in the motel back bedroom on that cold morning in the beginning of November 1983. The moments when he had forced his son to tell him everything and together they had removed the body of Henri's mistress from the room – stuffing her into the back of the old boat they then used to travel the by-ways and bayou tributaries back into the city of New Orleans.

'_Papa – please - dis baby is my son.' _

_Henri's face twisted with emotion and pale as the sickle moon presiding over the November sky. The general hospital had already isolated the foundling baby in a special wing; no nurses were in attendance over his bedside because they all feared the babe's red and black glowing eyes. Jean-Luc would never forget how the tiny boy-child had simply looked at him, with such frighteningly knowing eyes, as he picked up his own grandson and wrapped him in perfunctory fashion in swaddling clothes suitable for travelling. _

_Henri had grabbed his arms and tried to wrest his son from his father, 'Non, mon pere, do not do dis. Dis boy is a LeBeau: he is de Diable Blanc o' de prophecy! Do not give him to a man like de Antiquity.' _

_Jean-Luc had watched a moment as Henri stroked one shaking finger under the chubby baby's chin. The infant had blinked at his father and never once made a sound. He did not even squeak as his rosebud mouth formed a sucking pout, his little throat parched and longing for the mother's milk he would never again receive. _

_Pulling the baby away from Henri was perhaps one of the hardest things Jean-Luc had ever done (though he would make a more harrowing decision when eighteen years later he would disown the child in his arms before the combined might of the Guilds and the Tithe Collector). _

'_Dere be no help for it, Henri.' He had snapped. 'You brought dis down on all our heads.' _

_He had tucked the small, silent, and passive baby into the crook of one arm as he fisted a hand in the front of Henri's shirt with the other. 'You t'ink Marius an' de Assassin's gon let dis boy grow up to unify de Guilds?' He had shaken his son in his grip unable to repress his anger. 'Non! Dey will see dis - _dis stupidity_ you done here - as an act of aggression by Clan LeBeau and de t'ieves. Dis baby will cause a war to kill us all.'_

_The baby, almost forgotten in his arm, let out a wail of distress. For a moment as Jean-Luc had stared down at the plump and unformed face going red as a tomato and he had felt nothing but anger. This boy could ruin everything he had spent lifetimes working towards; all that sacrifice for nothing. Instead of a beloved grandson to be doted on, Jean-Luc had only seen the weapon Marius Boudreaux and his hated assassins would use to destroy Clan LeBeau and the entire New Orleans Thieves Guild. _

_Jean-Luc had let go of his son in that moment and his hand had moved towards the baby's neck; for less than a second he had truly contemplated the unconscionable and every moment after, whenever Remy had smiled at him, he would be haunted by the memory of what his anger had almost made him do. _

'_Papa!' Henri had stared at him eyes wide but his voice had broken the violent and dark spell._

_Jean-Luc had forced himself to swallow his anger as he pushed his son with his free hand towards the hospital room window. 'We have to go; quickly.' _

_As he and Henri had scaled the outer wall of the hospital the baby in Jean-Luc's arms had continued to cry intermittently, shivering in the slight chill of encroaching winter rising from the night time river mists. He had received no comfort from either his father or his grandfather, much to Jean-Luc's eternal shame thereafter. _

'_We not really gon leave him wit' dat monster, mon Pere, oui?' Henri had sounded like a child as they hurried over the roof tops and through the shadows of the Big Easy towards the Antiquity's abode. _

'_Non,' Jean-Luc had said once the baby had finally settled into a fitful nap, head upon his grandfather's shoulder, 'We leave him wit' de Antiquity for a time; whoever kilt his mother may be after him an' dere be no place harder to break int' to in all Louisiana den de Antiquity's maison.' _

'_Den we claim him?' The eagerness in Henri's voice had crushed the already broken shards of Jean-Luc's heart to bitter powder. _

'_Non,' He had shaken his head, trying not to inhale the sweet scent of his newborn, and only, grandson's delicate skin. Jean-Luc had forced himself not to stroke the soft bald dome of the infant's head. At the time he had truly believed that he could not allow himself to feel a thing for the child in his arms; in years to come he would curse himself a coward and a fool for that. 'I will place him wit' Fagin's gang; we can watch him den wit'out drawin' de attention o' de Assassins dat way. When de time is right I will find a way to bring him into de Clan proper.' _

_Henri had stopped dead outside the Antiquity's maison. Something like defiance sett his jaw in the grey shadows of the iron and honeysuckle braided walls, 'He is _my_ son, mon pere.' _

'_Never say dose words again,' Jean-Luc had snapped back reaching out with blinding speed to cuff his son across the head, 'Less'n you wan' to tell Mercy why you betrayed her wit' some mutant woman you don even know!' _

_Henri had stared at him for a moment and then shook his head, 'Mon Pere….' He had trailed off helplessly before blanching and taking a step back._

'_Non Henri,' Jean-Luc had persisted harshly, rocking the baby in his arms almost absently, 'If'n you would claim dis boy as your blood, den you got to take de responsibility for him completely. You prepared to lose Mercy, an bring de wrath o' de Assassins down your head for dis bebe, Henri? For dat is what a father would do.' _

'_Mon Pere…..I…' Henri had stared from his father's face to the baby who had awoken in Jean-Luc's arms and now stared between the two adults with the wide and uncomprehending eyes of an infant demon. The boy's little mouth had moved into something that might almost have been a smile. Henri's face had twisted, painted and dappled in the shadows of their trade and his eyes had filled with tears. Despite this Henri had still turned his face from his son in that moment._

'_Non….' Henri had breathed walking a few aimless steps away and reaching out to grab fistfuls of the barred railing surrounding the outer walls of the Antiquity's maison. He had leaned against the bars in silence for a moment like a man railing against the cage fate and poor decisions had made for him._

'_Non……I don' wan' dat.' Henri had hung his head low but his hoarse whisper still reached out over the still, moon stained, November night._

'_I cannot raise him, I cannot pay dat price for dis boy……let de Antiquity take him……de boy is not my chile….'_

_Jean-Luc had not been able to look at his son in that moment; he had found himself sickened and disgusted with himself as much as with Henri. He had never felt a greater sense of shame as he had in that moment, not in hundred and more years of life, but for the Guild and the Clans he had felt he had no choice but to do as he did on that night. He had believed that he had no choice but to give up his own kin._

_Without meaning to Jean-Luc had found himself sucked back into the strange gaze of the baby in his arms; those crimson and obsidian eyes seemed so open, so peaceful and watchful. That poor child, less than twenty hours old, could have had no comprehension that his mother had been murdered hours after his birth and his father and grandfather were about to disown him for more than a decade. _

'_D'accord,' Jean-Luc had said, 'You stay here Henri; I will take de bebe to de Antiquity.'_

_Henri had not looked at him as he spoke but instead had kept his eyes on the ground like a shamed school boy. The tears had dripped from Henri's nose and chin onto the cold asphalt of the road as Jean-Luc had entered a known people trafficker's home with a baby stolen to order. _

* * *

**The Xavier Institute**

Ororo Munroe watched the projected memories filter from the Dark Beast's mind, via Psylocke and the cerebro unit, into holographic images bounced up from the smooth surface of the War Room table.

In tones of translucent greens, blues, and sepia browns she watched, along with the rest of the X-men, a tragedy unfold in silent clarity. The long nails of her hands bit into her palms as she clenched her fists in helpless anger.

A section of bayou shimmered into life in the air three inches off the table top; there was the shell of a wooden house, half enveloped by the foliage, and a dirty blanket laid over the worn and water logged wooden floor. She saw two women, one dishevelled and weak from recent child birth half lying on the blanket, another with paler hair screaming slightly as the Dark Beast approached.

The darker woman held a tiny new born to her breast, clutched tightly like the precious creature he was, and her eyes, conveyed through the medium of a muddy water colour palette, were still brilliant points of fire and darkness. The image was no larger than a few inches, a 2D silent image that nevertheless screamed in vibrant energy the horror of a mother who stared her killer in the face.

'Oh lord no.'

Ororo heard Rogue's quiet almost groan of mounting horror as they saw the dark woman, undoubtedly the titular Rebecca, struggle upright on unsteady feet, press a kiss to the top of the tiny baby's head and pass the child off to the other woman all in one smooth, calm motion.

After that it was simply chaos.

In a series of disjointed freeze frames the scrambled memories coalesced into a kaleidoscope of sickening brutality. The pale, thin woman clutched the blanket wrapped infant to her chest and turned to run for a small power boat tied up to a dilapidated jetty a few yards from the shack. The Dark Beast leapt for her, but was tackled in mid lunge by the dark haired and wild eyed Rebecca.

The woman stood between the Dark Beast clutching an old tire iron, of all things, as a weapon. Her summer dress was torn and stained and blood ran down her bare legs. Her hair was wild and her sharp featured face strained. Behind her back the blonde woman piled into the boat with the infant and started the engine.

The Dark Beast lashed out at Remy's mother while she was distracted by the sound of her sister escaping with her son. His claws ripped her dress apart at the stomach drawing blood in jagged, thin horizontal lines.

Somewhere else in the War Room Ororo thought she heard the deep, subterranean rumble of Logan's growls. Still the presence of her fellow X-men seemed a long way from her right now; the only thing that seemed real was the holographic images flickering on screen.

She watched Rebecca leap in the air, demonstrating a natural agility and lithe power in her muscles that she had only seen the like of in Gambit. She saw the woman swinging the tire iron as she landed on the Dark Beast; she saw the memories falter and shudder in remembered pain as the blows landed with a speed, strength, and savagery that was more than the Dark Beast could counter.

The images projected up from the holographic sensors set into the War Room table became even more indistinct after that; a lurid, washed out, jumble of barely comprehensibly violence.

At one point Rebecca was winning, over-powering the Dark Beast with superior agility, speed, and guile. There was a moment when she managed to run from him, leaping from the intertwined branches of the trees in the bayou like a Lima. It was clear, even in these fragmented memories, that the woman had been running towards something or someone - as if she believed that there would be sanctuary waiting for her.

As foolish as it was Ororo caught herself willing the woman on, as if somehow, in repeat, the outcome of this encounter could be changed for the better.

The images shuddered and flickered as the mind supplying the source material jettisoned unnecessary details in favour of a whir of motion as it became apparent that Rebecca would not be able to outrun the Dark Beast. Exhausted from labour and already injured the woman was leaving a trail of blood in her wake.

A cacophony of screaming silent images filled Ororo's senses; a flash of red from a piece of paper clutched in Rebecca's hand was almost too bright compared to the shades of murk that made up the rest of the scene. Then Ororo witnessed large hands covered in thick fur go from a dull grey to a murky black with blood as the stubby claws on the ends of those paw-like hands slashed and tore into the woman when she finally ran out of room to run.

The end was savagely fast but Rebecca fought for every second, twisting and squirming, kicking and biting, until the Dark Beast managed to curl one blood matted hand around her throat and almost elegantly snapped the woman's so very fragile neck.

'Enough - stop this – enough!'

Henry Hank McCoy, the doctor and the man within the body of a beast, leapt from his chair in the War Room and stepped back from the table. What he had just seen would never leave him; it would remain a scar upon his soul for the rest of his days. He had never imagined such monstrous, callous, cruelty could live within him, and yet a man wearing his face, and claiming to be another Hank McCoy, had perpetrated this act of barbarism.

'This is wrong.' He whispered.

Hank covered his face in his hands for a moment until those hands appeared too much like the hands that had killed Gambit's mother in cold blood. He choked on bile and might have loped from the room had it not been for Robert's hand on his shoulder.

'Hang in there Blue; we know that's not you.'

Hank lifted his head and his eyes were as washed out and lifeless as the images projected up from the table. Hank was not a coward; he would watch these memories to the bitter end but he would never again possess the complacency of goodness. He would never again believe that he was not just as capable of wrong doing as any other man.

'But it is Bobby; or at least it could have been.' He whispered emptily.

Innocence was lost as through the murk of time and memory a woman died a pointless, savage death.

Tiny and perfect the image of Rebecca fell into an inky swathe of sepia tinted water. Her long dark hair spread like wild weeds to play in the eddies and flow of the current. Blood, grey and greyish-green in hue, further clouded the murky waters of the bayou. It began to rain in those memories, droplets rippling the stilling surface of the swamp, as the woman's sightless eyes burned up and out of the hologram in silent accusation.

There is no justice, those eyes seemed to say, and it is our children who pay the price.

Ororo finally found the power to turn away from the images then; the salt from the tears she willed herself not to shed stung the crescent scabs forming in the flesh of her palms as she covered her mouth with her hands.

The holographic sensors on the table top powered down and Psylocke silently pulled the cerebro helmet from her head. In the War Room no one spoke a word. The only sounds were the whisper of power through the generators further down the hall in the sub-basement and the soft steady hiss-hiss tick of the fast moving second hands on all Gambit's apprehended clocks.

Warren Worthington the Third lifted his head from where he had been staring sightlessly at the now dormant War Room table. His blood was pounding in his ears and his throat was tight and hot. He had to clear his throat before he felt able to speak.

'This Garden,' he began looking up at the vid-screen face of Threnody and then around the room, 'You said it was most likely in Almogordo, New Mexico - right?'

'The Black Womb project was based in Almogordo, yes. I assume the Garden is there too.' Threnody hedged cautiously.

'Right,' Warren rose to his feet and fixed his eyes on Cyclops, 'The Blackbird's a scrap heap and it's still in Illinois anyway; I'll make some calls – we'll take one of the Worthington Industries jet's if it comes to it.'

Cyclops frowned in confusion. He was still reeling from what he had just seen; Jean's hand tightly gripping his under the table was shaking violently and he could taste on his tongue the hot copper burn of her anger and shock. 'What?'

Warren stared at everyone in the room, 'Christ on a crutch people,' he hissed, 'What are you waiting for? Sinister's probably got Gambit in this Garden place. We can save the talking until _after_ we put that bastard out of business permanently.'

Warren's eyes went opaque and haunted, 'I don't like Gambit and I'm pretty damn sure the feeling's mutual, and maybe the guy deserves to be locked up for some of the shit he's done,' he trailed off and shook his head furiously and his wings half opened in the tight space. 'But what I just saw is one of the saddest fucking things I've ever seen.'

His lips thinned and he waved a hand at the now empty air a few inches above the table, 'How am I supposed to relate to that?' he asked almost rhetorically, 'How the fuck am I supposed to weigh up and judge a life that's been so full of shit from the very beginning; a life that I can't even imagine living?'

Warren flexed his shoulders and his wings jumped and flexed in turn. He stepped forward and slammed his open palms flat against the table top leaning forward as he spoke with sudden passion. 'Right now I don't give a fuck about any of that. Right now all I care about is doing my job.'

'Yeah and what job is that bub?' Logan asked him laconically from his lounging position near the door – a place he had not moved from since this whole sad meeting had begun.

Warren whipped his head around to glare at the man he had never liked or approved of, 'I'm an X-man, _bub, _and whatever anyone else thinks I still know what that means.'

His blue eyes fixed first on Bobby and then lingered on the distraught Hank before finishing up with Scott and Jean; the original five. If they couldn't uphold Xavier's principles when it counted then they were all fucked.

'The X-men don't judge, we don't hold a person's past against them because the future's more important.' He said almost in a whisper as a thousand little things came home to roost in his mind and for the first time since he broke free of Apocalypse's conditioning Warren felt truly like himself again.

'X-men don't judge,' he repeated, 'X-men _hope _and we keep hoping even when it hurts, because if we stop hoping that monsters can become angels we're finished before we've even begun.'

Warren's wings unfurled then and the pure white plumage caught the harsh lights of the fluorescents in the ceiling and seemed to glow for a second; the contrast with his blue skin was profound. In that moment Warren embodied both the monster and the angel, but more than that, he was a man – and more importantly he was an _X-man_.

For a moment there was silence. Then Cyclops met his friend's eyes and smiled, 'Make those calls, War,' he said quietly. A flash of red filled his visor as he looked at the other assembled team members, 'Let's move people; we have a team-mate to save.'

The X-men moved – it was what they had been founded to do and after months in a void, they had found their purpose again.

* * *

**The Garden – Central Core**

'Why grandmother what big circuits you have,' Remy LeBeau commented somewhat inanely as he stared up at the half-woman, half-machine, and all-disturbing_ thing_ before him.

Behind his back Sinister moved around activating various high-tech gizmo's throughout the large circular chamber with the wide chasm drop in the middle leading way down into a misty pit of what Remy assumed was instant death.

The room was lit with lurid flickers of crimson and sunset pink from the thick cables running across the ceiling and up into the crucified and half-mummified form of Amanda Mueller trussed up to the central spire. The dry ice mist that rose from the obscured base of the spire was tinted blue by the neon bright globe lighting spotting the tower and circular walk way. The smearing blur of red and blue light was painful and malevolent. Remy repressed a shiver.

The boom, boom, thrum of powered up machines made him flinch as behind his back the various thingiemebobs that made the Garden do what it was that it did, activated. A hundred thousand strands of fibre-optic cable falling away from Amanda Mueller's shrivelled and distended head like a techno flavoured rainbow mane began to pulse with lights and colour.

'Mon dieu – dose are de same cables dat we saw in de Garden.'

'Of course,' Essex almost scoffed at his ignorance, 'Where else did you think the data came from that fills those cables?'

'But dey comin' out o' her head!' Remy finally turned around to face Sinister, vaguely nauseous.

Essex regarded his outburst with mild interest, 'As I said, the Garden requires a mind to function. Amanda had outlived her usefulness in almost every other respect – and while she lacks your mutated neurology and thus cannot advance the scope of the Garden as you soon will, she has served adequately until now as a storage unit.'

Gambit was now feeling decidedly more than merely nauseous, 'An' dis is what you were gon do to my mother?' he asked very levelly.

Essex moved forward to stand beside Gambit as they both looked up at the pulsing rainbow trails falling from Amanda's head and snaking through the walls and up into the ceiling in every direction.

'Think on it LeBeau, try to wrap your primitive cognition around the notion of a repository of knowledge detailing not only the entire history of mutant evolution, from Apocalypse to Cable, but it's future projectory as well. The Garden is the mutant arc of the covenant, thief, an unparalleled resource of knowledge and potential. If you destroy this you will be throwing your race into a veritable dark age.'

Sinister's eyes glowed into his, red and cold and penetrating, 'Every life I have taken, or ordered extinguished, served a purpose, LeBeau. Every pound of flesh went towards building this Garden – and creating _you.' _

'Me?' Remy took a step back, more prudence than fear. He did not want to be too near either the steep drop-off or Essex at this moment.

'Yes,' Sinister almost hissed the word, seeming to ooze forward towards him like a rippling cold wind.

'You are a mutant with the genetic potential to manipulate all matter, time, and space. Your human consciousness cannot process that immensity, but connected to the Garden –'

Essex waved one hand towards the spire where Mueller twisted in the throes of the power and energy being fed into and pushed out of her body and mind; her mouth in the withered, dried up face, opening on silent screams.

'You will allow me to see the entire process of my experimentation from the first moment to its results.' Essex continued with the quiet mania of the truly deranged. Right that moment he was not a caricature of a villain, but merely a villain in truth – and just as ugly as that sounds.

'No longer will I have to work blindly, toiling year after year, and suffering failure after failure. With you at the helm of the Garden I will be able to know, within an instance, if a hypothesis will bear fruit or wither on the vine.'

Gambit gaped at him, 'You wan' use me like a freakin' magic eight ball? Mon dieu, I'm not a fuckin' fortune teller, homme!' he took another step backwards. He was beginning to get just a little nervous now.

Sinister moved too fast to credit; his arm elongated like elasticised candle wax and his fist wrapped around Gambit's throat dragging him up off his feet.

'You will be what I _will_ you to be, LeBeau. You are flesh of my flesh and I have waited long enough for this moment.'

'Non!' Gambit choked and kicked out at Sinister, his vision already greying out as his oxygen supply was cut off.

Essex threw Remy in a wide arc through the air towards a metal operating table surrounded by a variety of frightening looking machines and instruments Gambit had conveniently decided to ignore when he first entered the room.

Remy flipped neatly end over end and landed, like a cat, feet first on the top of the operating table. He crouched warily and eyed Sinister as he slithered forward, moving like liquid across the grated floor of the walkway.

'The process has already begun,' Essex told him with cold triumph, 'Six years ago I incorporated your neurological bio-rhythms into all the Garden's power matrixes; including grafting your brain tissue samples to Amanda's cerebral core in preparation for the day you would be ready to take your rightful place at the helm.'

Remy waited until Sinister was almost in front of him before back flipping off the table and landing near the back wall of the room. He felt concrete and cables under the run of his hands as he reached behind him to find his balance, not daring to take his eyes from Sinister.

'I knew that you would eventually find your way here, thief, that is why I planted the sub-conscious command and the hypnotic suggestion of the count down in your mind.' Essex continued to mock him as he boxed Gambit in against the wall and all Sinister's machines. 'I knew that you would attempt some manner of rebellion before then attempting to best me in my own domain,' his sharp teeth flashed in a snarl that lacked any emotion, 'considering the potential locked within your brain your foolishness has always been a source of disappointment to me.'

Gambit smiled sharply in return then, plans and opportunities racing through his mind, 'One man's fool is another man's genius, m'sieur; mebbe you underestimatin' my powers o' deep plannin', oui?'

'Hardly,' Essex scoffed, 'If you had any sense you would never have allowed yourself to enter the Garden alone and unconscious.'

The bloody red diamond on Sinister's brow flashed and he smiled again showing rows of piranha teeth. 'Or have you forgotten what happened the last time you passed out in my presence, thief?'

A spike of raw fear and shock rushed through Gambit and his hand automatically went to the back of his head. His fingers threaded through his hair at the nape of his neck and felt out the tender spot and the raised scar at the back of his head. He stared at Sinister.

'You put it back.' He whispered.

Sinister drew closer, red eyes glowing as brightly as the cables and data cords riddling Mueller's body high above both their heads, 'You are no use to me as only half a mutant.' He replied with flat contempt, 'you alone could not contain the full potential of your powers but the Garden will.'

Gambit ignored that statement, focusing instead on the realisation that Essex had _put his powers back to their highest level. _A smile scythed across his face; the antelope had just bent his fucking head at the watering hole and _damn,_ was this cat ever ready to strike.

'You put my powers back?' he started to laugh. Sinister stopped hedging him in and frowned, 'Ah homme, now who're you callin' foolish?'

Gambit shoved himself off from the wall and let his bio-kinetic charge shimmer throughout every cell of his body, turning him into a walking time bomb. He stepped towards Essex but the other man held his ground regarding him tiredly.

'Do you really think you can harm me, thief? Are you really so foolish as to assume that I have not taken precautions against your bio-kinetic charge?'

Gambitr chuckled, 'Non, but I'm gon guess you ain't run yourself through any metal detectors lately either, oui?' Remy raised one hand like a conductor preparing to lead the orchestra or a magician striking a pose before he revealed his trick.

Essex frowned, the slightest tremor of consternation running through him, 'What are you babbling about?'

'Metal detectors, m'sieur,' Gambit smiled sauntering forward and hoping cockily onto the corner of the operating table; this time it was Sinister who took a step back. Remy smiled like a cat smiles at a mouse. He continued in conversationally tones.

'Course it's possible dat de lil' locator chip I done stuck in your brain back at Beta-Star be jus' a petit too small to detect, oui?'

Sinister's eyes widened. He opened his mouth to speak and the diamond on his forehead pulsed in alarm.

'Like I said, m'sieur Essex,' Gambit smiled and snapped his fingers, 'one man's genius be another man's fool.'

It was at that moment that Sinister's head exploded.


	34. Chapter 34

**Chapter Thirty-Three: Restitution**

**The Garden: Central Core**

Remy LeBeau's favourite animal was in fact a bird, and that bird was the Flamingo. He loved Flamingos; they were a ridiculous impractical pink colour, they had spindly legs, and they lived in the same murky waters of the African plains as the hippopotamus and crocodiles. C'mon mes amis; what was not to like?

He was also more of a cat person than a dog person; he appreciated a cat's independence and basic contempt for the hand that feeds it.

Remy LeBeau knew he was a geek in his head and heart and cherished the fact; his love of sci-fi was something real and something that he was sure no one had engineered for him to like.

He loved the thrill of stealing and the adrenaline rush of planning a really complicated heist, but the allure of money and infamy had long since lost its lustre.

His favourite food was seafood linguini but only when made in one dinky little hole in the wall Italian restaurant down in Queens. He could cook Cajun as only a true Cajun could, but that didn't make it his favourite.

He had a standing arrangement with the Kingpin to represent Mr Fisk in all the underground poker tournaments in New York City; the arrangement had proved nicely lucrative for both of them.

One of his fondest memories was being double-dared by Belle at the age of fifteen to dress up in drag and parade around the French Quarter during Mardi Gras; the best part had been the look of green apple jealousy on Belle's face when almost every man in every bar he tottered into on six inch stiletto heels had offered to buy him a drink.

Belle would always be his wife, even if one day they actually filed for a divorce. He couldn't imagine ever being with her again but the thought of losing his connection to Belle was as incomprehensible to him as the thought of learning to breathe underwater. He knew that Belle wanted to use him to take control of the Guilds and he thought it was cute of her to think she needed to deceive him about it; as if he'd ever refuse her the thing that gave her life meaning.

Rogue was the first, and might well be the only, woman he had ever fallen madly, deeply, blindly, in love with and he still wasn't sure why. Rogue had taught him what mad, bad, and dangerous love was all about and he would always be grateful for that; he was a better man today because of it. He didn't think he would ever stop loving her like a wound in his heart, either, but he no longer dreamed of a future together.

Deep down inside he wondered if his passion for Rogue had ever been the equal of his love for Stormy.

Hidden away under a veneer of polite indifference, Remy really, truly, loathed Warren Worthington; this made him feel ashamed. Not because he was guilty about Warren's wings (although he was guilty about those, it had to be said) but because the one thing he felt he did well in life was turning the other cheek. That he couldn't forgive Warren for being rich, privileged, and secure about his place in the world made Remy feel like he had failed somehow.

Remy had always thought that sending Jubilee away from the mansion was not only a mistake but an insult and Logan was a pussy-whipped fool for letting le Professeur and Jean Grey talk him into it.

Speaking of the Grey-femme, Remy didn't like her all that much but he'd tumble her in a hot second if Scott wasn't in the picture. He secretly sort of wished he'd been around to see the genesis of the whole Dark Phoenix and Black Queen of the Hellfire Club thing. Jean in a black leather corset and riding whip was one of those fantasies that made a man feel bad for being a man but was damn hard to give up.

He would also pay a great deal of money to see Stormy wear her biker leathers; it was a huge disappointment to him that he'd missed out on that whole Australia episode when Stormy was wild and she and Logan ruled the roost. Lord God, if he'd met up with _that_ Stormy he'd have lost his head and his heart in an instance and no mistake.

Remy hated his codename; Gambit had been a ruse to keep him living when he couldn't bear to be himself any longer, but now that tag and the persona that went with it felt like a concrete vest crushing the life and will from his soul.

He'd been celibate for almost two years and he was so very, very sick of it now; he missed meaningless sex with a pain.

Remy had once been to a party held by Sebastian Shaw and the New York Hellfire Club. He'd thoroughly enjoyed every debauched moment of it and left sometime the next morning with a hundred thousand dollars worth of silver plate and jewellery secreted about his person.

He was a card carrying member of Amnesty International and the FoH; the latter because he wanted to see how good their recruitment screening was in case he needed to infiltrate Creed's little hate fest. When he was issued with a card and email updates of all upcoming rallies without any background checks he had decided that the FoH wasn't worth his time to infiltrate.

Remy didn't consider himself suicidal exactly; it just seemed to him that if his future was anything like his past it wasn't worth living. His doctor in the city diagnosed low grade chronic depression – Remy just considered himself to be a realistic nihilist.

He would never call himself a clever man; he knew he was a fool, but his argument was that all men were fools. Still, a fool he might be, but he could be clever with it; other men thought they were smart and were damn foolish about it.

Remy had strongly suspected for years that his Pere knew who his birth parents were; he'd never asked because he didn't want to know just how badly Jean-Luc had screwed him over all these years.

He loved life but he longed to die; it was a dichotomy that he had grown comfortable with, but he suspected very few people would understand. So he hid the fears that crawled under his skin and the dreams he knew he couldn't make true under a smile and a wink and let the cards fall as they would.

Of course none of that had any real bearing on what was going on _now _but as eulogies went it provided valuable insight all the same; especially as at this present moment Remy was performing a passable impression of a total psycho.

'Mon dieu, why is not'ing ever easy?'

Remy jumped over Sinister's twitching body, careful to avoid the maggot crawling pieces of Essex's brain that oozed down the walls and suppurated across the floor towards the man's rapidly reforming cranium. Suppressing a shiver of distaste Remy hurried to the edge of the walkway, looking up at granny Mandy.

'Remy, you really gone an' done it dis time boy.' He muttered darkly as he looked over the cords, cables, and tendrils that twinned down the spire from Amanda's pinioned body.

He looked back at Essex's rapidly reforming form; that wouldn't do. He needed to give himself more time. Moving swiftly towards the operating table that Essex had all laid out ready for a Gambit-octomy Remy grabbed a collection of scalpels, surgical saws, and other stainless steel implements whose purpose he did not even want to speculate on.

Returning to stand just beside the half-formed squirming mass of greyish silver wriggling worms of brain matter and whatever it is was that took the place of flesh, muscle, and bone in Sinister's body, Remy watched transfixed. The monster's skull was reforming like stop-motion photography at high speed. He couldn't see it rebuilding with the naked eye but more of it formed every time he blinked.

He stared down at the sharp bladed weapons he held in both hands; he began to charge them even as his conscience kicked up merry hell inside his head. His conscience called him depraved and sick for even contemplating what he was contemplating. The hardened survivalist under Remy's skin pointed out patiently that if he let Sinister reform neither he, nor his conscience, would be alive to feel bad about things later. His conscience shut the hell up and Remy got to work.

'Lord have mercy on my soul,' crossing himself almost absently Remy crouched by Essex's momentarily vulnerable form and slammed one of the foot-long pneumatic syringes, charged to glowing point, straight through Essex's reforming nasal cavity. The body jerked and the ragged, wriggling pieces of flesh rippled like coral reefs disturbed by a change in sea current.

'God forgive me.'

Remy grabbed hold of one twitching hand and opened the hand palm up before embedding a scalpel through it, impaling the limb to the steel grated floor; he repeated the process with the other hand before he could lose his nerve.

When he was finished Essex's hands and feet were pinned to the ground and the homme had so many pointy things sticking up out of his skull he looked like a metallic porcupine. Remy stared at his glowing handiwork and at the writhing, rippling, slurping flesh trying to mould itself around the various foreign bodies piercing that flesh. He felt his stomach revolt violently.

'Shit,' staggering to his feet he lurched over to the railings and threw up over the side, shaking violently and coated with icy sweat. 'Shit, shit, shit.'

His knees wanted to give way and a scream of panicked horror tried to crawl up his throat. Remy could cope with evil in others, more or less, but it was the deep fissure of evil inside his own soul that left him trembling with terror sweat.

Behind his back something went pop; he whipped around to discover that Essex had managed to force one of the scalpels out of his hand and it had exploded against the floor when dislodged from his flesh. Gambit swore savagely; what did he have to do, to take this mother-fucking bastard out?

Leaping over Sinister's struggling body Remy picked up a wheelie metal chair (of all things) carried it over to Essex's body, charged the chair, and forced it through the monster's chest cavity until the wheels squealed against the grated floor right through the centre of Essex's torso.

'For fuck's sake stay dead.' He snarled stumbling back from the horrific sight of Sinister's grey-maggot flesh wriggling up the stem of the chair trying to incorporate the swivel chair into his basic body mass.

'Mary Mother of God…….' A surge of renewed panic helped shake him from his horrified gawking. Swiftly he turned away from Sinister and bounded over to the railings.

He jumped up onto one of the safety railings running along the edge of the walkway and tightrope walked across the narrow beam to the thicket of the larger, stronger, looking cables arcing up towards Amanda.

'Dis is gon end badly, I can tell,' still mumbling to himself, mostly as a distraction from thinking too hard, Remy grabbed a fistful of cable and pulled on it to test how secure it was and whether it could take his weight. A fission of static energy ran from his hand down his arm as he closed his fist around the cable. Bright lights flashed behind his eyes.

_Melody Jacobs – July 10__th__ 1982 necro-plasmic absorption…….._

'What de hell?' Gambit shook his head clearing the flash of - _something _- that had seared into his brain from his thoughts. He frowned; it was almost as if he had just absorbed through his skin the data contained within the cable at the same time he had drawn the bio-kinetic energy in through his skin.

'Well I'll be damned.'

He blinked a few times and then more cautiously reached out with both hands to grab hold of the cables; there was another tingle as bio-kinetic energy seeped into his body but thankfully he didn't get anymore odd flashes of names or faces or anything else to go with it.

'Here goes not'ing,' taking a deep breath Gambit swung himself off the railing. For a moment he was dangling over an impossibly deep chasm, gripping the cords for dear life. Then he managed to wrap his legs around the cords as well and began inching his way up the cable; as he shimmied along the data cable turned from golden-white to searing heated blue-white.

'Ah fuck – don _do_ dis to me now,' He was now wriggling along a lit fuse and the taper was burning down fast. He tried to re-absorb the excess energy he'd been unintentionally feeding into the cable. It didn't seem to do any good; he had no capacity to store, or disperse, the energy left in him let alone to take in more. He was maxed out. Stupid uncontrollable powers; stupid Sinister and his lousy genetic engineering; he ought to sue.

When Remy was about halfway between the walkway and the spire Essex's body began to move with actual intent instead of bucking and writhing like a landed fish; the charged swivel chair flew five foot into the air and exploded. The tiny pops and hissing sounds from below Remy were indicative of the fact that Essex was not going to stay down for much longer.

'Mon dieu what you got to do to get dat homme to stay down for five minutes, eh?' despite the very real danger he was now in, Remy couldn't help but be a little relieved that he hadn't come close to truly hurting Sinister. He hated Essex deeply and completely but murder was murder and Remy didn't want to add killing family members to his rap sheet.

He picked up the pace all the same; he did not want to be caught by a tres, tres pissed off Sinister with his ass literally swinging in the wind either.

By the time he reached the base of the spire, near Amanda's tiny, atrophied, feet Remy's teeth were aching from the energy build up in his body and his vision was swimming with waves of light and motion. It hurt to breathe and his brain felt like it was floating in a cocktail of sulphuric acid and vinegar.

He was reminded, in that moment, of one of his Tante Mattie's favourite sayings: reap what you sow. He wondered if he was the reaper or the sower today - or if he was going to do his share of both by the time this mess was done?

Trying not to think too hard about what he was actually planning to do – because the last thing he needed was to piss himself or throw up in revulsion and terror again – he began trying to climb the spire to reach level with Amanda's head.

A flash of movement in his peripheral vision was his only warning to imminent danger. Ungainly due to the surfeit of power percolating in his veins Remy just managed to twist and swing his body around to the back end of the circular bottom plinth of the spire before Essex's energy blast could splat him like a fly and send him plummeting to his death down into the dry ice and blue mist swathed chasm.

'LEBEAU!' Essex didn't sound even remotely human anymore. His voice was the roar of an industrial furnace combined with the scream of an avalanche and the shriek of tearing metal.

Remy groaned and reached out to start hauling himself up the spire towards Amanda's head once more. Another beam of energy lanced across his back and shoulder-blades as he struggled to find cables to pull on and pieces of spire to use as footholds. The blow hurt but it was a dull pain; Gambit was radiating his own energy and the brunt of Sinister's blast was instantly dissipated by contact with the corona of energy that shimmered around his body.

'LEBEAU!'

Remy turned his head, still plastered to the side of the spire like a bad Spiderman impersonator, and looked down upon the walkway platform where a more or less whole again Essex paced like a caged tiger. He smirked at the man and called out, with bravado completely faked, 'Careful where you be flingin' dem beams o' yours, m'sieur; you wouldn' wan' harm your precious jardin, non?'

Essex continued to snarl and pace, but there really wasn't anything he could – or dared - do under the circumstances. For a brief few seconds Remy had him by the short and curlies and they both knew it.

'Oui, now who's de fool?' he smiled even though he could feel the liquid wash of blood covering his back and the acid bite of pain across his shoulders; he suspected that the skin had been paired back almost to the muscle in places. He was more than likely a dead man when he climbed back down from the spire. If he was lucky Sinister would be so angry he'd kill him quick - but Remy kind of doubted it.

He was so close now, though, and he couldn't stop. He'd spent most of his life either deliberately not trying because he was afraid of failing or failing because he hadn't realised he was even being tested. Today he was actually going to win; today failure was not an option.

If death proved to be his only reward for a job well done, well, d'accord; there were plenty of folks that would say he had it coming anyhow.

'Merci dieu,' Gambit's reaching hands gripped something that wasn't hard metal or static charged fibre-optic cable.

He felt bone under dry dust and wrinkled flesh. His fingers closed upon the right shoulder of Amanda Mueller and he thought he heard a guttural moan rise like a revenant from the grave in response to his touch. Gritting his teeth Remy lurched upward and hooked an arm around the woman's collarbone and the long lightning conductor rod-thing that rose up behind her spine keeping her pinned in place.

He had reached the summit of his own decidedly macabre Everest. It was a damn shame he didn't have a flag to plant.

'Bonjour Grandmere; enchante,' He gritted out between his teeth as he struggled to find purchase to crouch just level with the shrivelled woman's shoulder; he ended up straddling one of the body width cables snaking around the spire instead. Essex was staring at him far below, just beginning to figure out what Remy had planned. Remy ignored him however fixing his intentions completely on what was left of the woman before him.

'Tsk, Mandy, you not lookin' so good, chere,' Remy regretted the irreverent words that popped out of his mouth as soon as he spoke them, but it was too late to take them back and he was too revolted by what was before him to be ashamed.

It was impossible to tell what age the woman had been when she had been trussed up here; she looked like one of those South American Inca mummies. Her skin was brown and flaky in places and smooth as glass in others. Her lips had shrunk back from her yellowed teeth leaving the woman with a permanent sneer. Her eyes should have been shrunken like dried grapes in the back of their sockets but instead from those wide, lidless, sockets twin flares of phosphor bright light blazed forth. Gummy runnels of some strange ichors had dried into a tacky mess from the corners of her eyes to run down the concave cheeks; almost like tears. Her body was naked and resembled a twisted strip of beef jerky more than it did a human. Data cords as wide as Gambit's forearm sprouted from her shoulders and thinner cables the width of his fingers extended from each vertebrae of her spine. Strands of hair fine tendrils tangled from her fingertips and a nest of the arm width cords erupted from her stomach and lower abdomen.

'Ah oui,' Remy sighed, 'I'm gon have nightmares about dis for years.'

He closed his eyes and prepared himself for what he had to do even as his stomach tried to crawl up his throat in protest. Knowing that it was now or never Remy swung himself around so that he was clinging like a monkey to the cables that acted as supports for the spire and facing what was left of Amanda Mueller directly. In so doing he also presented Sinister with a prime target but there was nothing to be done about that.

'Lord God forgive me,' he whispered once more squeezing his eyes closed even as he could all but feel the energy blast zinging through the air aimed for his back. He ducked his head forward, like a striking snake, and pressed his lips to the savage snarled mouth of Amanda Mueller.

The whole world exploded into light and noise and pain.

* * *

**Worthington One: en-route to New Mexico**

Archangel's premier private plane was not a thing like the Blackbird Jean Grey found herself musing absently, as she settled back into the plushly upholstered passenger seat and stretched her legs out in the amble leg space. It was a helluva lot nicer for one thing. The Blackbird didn't have carpeted flooring, or TV screens in the back of the seats. Jean wondered when a flight attendant would be by with the complimentary peanuts and a copy of the in-flight magazine. Her lips twisted in self-deprecating amusement and she demurely looked down at her lap to keep it from showing.

Across the other side of the passenger cabin Scott, Ororo, and Bishop had gathered around the large board room style table bolted to the middle of the floor and were all seated in large black leather armchair style seats sharing information with Hank and Threnody via satellite link-up about what they might expect to find in Almogordo when they got there.

To Jean's left Rogue sat curled up in one of the large plush seats staring sightlessly out of the window and chewing on one of the fingers of her glove. The truth about what Rogue had done to Psylocke and Threnody and the strange side-effects of her kiss with Gambit in Israel had been revealed to the team finally - however in light of everything else going on any disciplinary action would be shelved until the crisis was over.

Jean frowned a little; when all this was finally sorted out she and Rogue would have to have a talk. They needed to talk about what the other woman really wanted to do about her powers. It wasn't fair for Rogue to stay in this limbo state she'd been since the professor let her join the team aged seventeen.

_Rogue – how are you holding up?_

Jean sent the gentle probe without speaking; she didn't think the other woman would appreciate the attention speaking aloud would draw her way. A pair of too bright and slightly wet, green eyes snapped to her and for a moment Jean felt the tidal push of rejection against her mind. She thought Rogue might refuse to answer or try to push her out of her mind.

Instead the other woman dropped her eyes for a moment then looked up again, a wry smile quirking her lips. _I been better, Jean, but I'm dealin'. _Rogue's mental voice was faintly tinged with the southern cadence of her speech, but minus the accent.

'_We'll get him back Rogue. _Jean sent the reassurance she thought Rogue needed to hear and was therefore surprised when a wave of sardonic cynicism floated through the psi-channel towards her. Rogue snorted a sharp laugh and shook her head, brown and white curls bobbing against her shoulders.

_No we won't, Jean. We can save his damn fool life but he's done with us, hon. _

A thread of deep sorrow tainted Rogue's thoughts, but also a strange bitter-sweet understanding. _Remy ain't really like the rest of us Jean. This isn't some psychic possession or something and he'll come back to the team once it's over and we'll all pretend like none of this ever happened. He's burned his bridges – he's done with me, with the team, with the whole nine yards. Even if we bring him out of this mess alive – he's gone. _

Jean pursed her lips, _I'm sorry Rogue. _

The other woman managed a faint, dull eyed smile, _me too; but thems the breaks I guess. _She pulled free of the link then and Jean let her return to her pensive watch out of the window; sometimes the true skill of the telepath was knowing when _not_ to pry.

Speaking of which…….

On the other side of the aircraft to Jean's right Betsy was seated primly in a window seat reading some manner of magazine and looking calm and composed. Warren was upfront in the pilots' cabin with the Worthington Industries flight crew.

Jean shifted once more in her seat, no longer quite so comfortable. She turned to look down the aisle to the seats behind her. Logan was stretched out with his Stetson pulled over his eyes, seemingly asleep, but Jean did not doubt that he was aware of her eyes on him. She smiled and turned to face front again.

Forming a team for this mission had been both an exercise in simplicity and one of the hardest calls Scott had had to make in a while, as Jean well knew. Rogue and Ororo were a given of course; neither woman would remain behind under the circumstances regardless of how volatile a reunion between either one of them and Remy might prove to be.

Making Joseph stay behind at the mansion had been harder, but there was no way that sending him on a mission to rescue Gambit – who might need to be subdued before they actually could rescue him – alongside Rogue, whom he had strong feelings for, was a good idea. The advantages of having his powers on their side did not outweigh the liability Joseph might end up being. The newest and most mysterious X-man on the roster had not been happy with the decision, but he had accepted Cyclops command in the end.

Hank had been in two minds about the mission; on the one hand he wanted to go because he was still reeling from seeing another version of himself brutally murder Gambit's mother. On the other hand he didn't want to go for that very reason. Plus Sabretooth was still in a secure wing of the medbay and the Dark Beast needed to be watched in case he tried to escape. There was also Threnody to think of; therefore it made more sense for Beast to remain at the mansion but in contact with the team via comm. badge.

Bobby had elected to stay behind to help Sam watch over their 'guests' and, Jean suspected, to make sure Hank was okay. Warren was on the mission team because they were using his plane to get there, but more than that, it seemed to be important to him to do this for personal reasons. Jean suspected that it had something to do with the fact that Warren didn't like Gambit and Gambit didn't like Warren; there was pride and principle and a certain amount of saving face involved - but she also believed that Warren genuinely wanted to save another man's life.

Logan was going because Wolverine was an asset on any mission and Jean herself would be there as the team's strongest telepath. Psylocke was on the team, despite Rogue's objections, because if Jean did have to enter Gambit's mind for any reason, either to help him or subdue him, she would need Betsy's experience to help her navigate any traps and pitfalls in his mindscape.

Cyclops was going because he was the leader and it was his duty to rescue, or corral, renegade team members. Bishop had inserted himself on the team without much fuss but with the implacable insistence that, as the only member of the team to have ever set foot in the Garden in any time period, he would be needed. Jean suspected his true motives were more personal than that, but even if they were, Bishop always conducted himself in a controlled manner during missions. His energy absorption powers would probably come in handy anyway.

It was a solid team line-up, put together in Scott's usual eminently rational, practical, manner. Jean couldn't help but wonder, however, if it would be enough. They truly had no idea what would face them when they breached the defences of Almogordo. Heck, Jean conceded wryly, they weren't even sure how to get into the place in the first instance.

'Rogue?'

Jean was not the only one was startled by Betsy's disinterested words. The group at the table turned to face Psylocke at the same time that Rogue looked suspiciously over at the other woman.

'What?'

Betsy smiled and Jean just knew the other woman was up to some sort of mischief. 'You're a Leo aren't you? Your star sign, I mean.'

Rogue's suspicion was now shaded with confusion, 'Uh…yeah, Ah'm a Leo.' She frowned, 'Why are ya askin' about mah horoscope at a time like this?' Jean couldn't help but silently second that question as well.

Betsy clucked her tongue, her violet eyes shimmering with wicked black humour, 'Oh dear, fire and water, such a bad combination.' She smiled sharply at Rogue but her gaze also encapsulated the rest of the X-men in the cabin too, before fixing back on the Mississippian intently.

'What are ya on about; fire and water, what fire and water?' Rogue was beginning to get angry.

Betsy pretended to buff her nails as she widened her eyes at Rogue, 'You don't study your horoscope Rogue?' she asked with faux innocence, 'A pity, it might have saved you some pain – of course there was no way of knowing Gambit's sign until now, so maybe it wouldn't have helped.'

Rogue's anger vanished, 'Remy's sign? But ah thought ya needed a birthday ta…..' she stopped short, eyes widening, 'Ya know his date o' birth don't ya?'

Betsy's smile was sharp as a crescent moon and just as bright, 'November 5th 1983. He's a Scorpio, Rogue.' Betsy chuckled, 'Oh my, he is _such _a Scorpio – and you are a Leo and Leo is fire and Scorpio is water and frankly it explains so very much about the pair of you.'

Rogue looked like she had any number of sharp retorts ready but bit them back and decided to take the higher road. She turned her head away and went back to glaring out of the window.

'Remy has a birthday?' Ororo moved away from the table and took a seat in the row just in front of Jean. 'You are sure that is the correct date?'

'Quite sure,' Betsy nodded then she laughed, 'He's actually getting younger. He's still only twenty-five; won't be twenty-six for a good many months yet.'

Jean had moment of abstract envy to realise that she was almost a year older than Gambit. Then she decided not to worry about it. Something else had occurred to her.

'He doesn't know his own date of birth, does he?' she asked softly. She met Ororo's eyes through the gap between the seats in front of her. 'That must be difficult,' she thought aloud, 'I mean it's one thing to be adopted, or orphaned, but to not even know when you were born – it must be a very strange feeling; almost like you don't have any roots anywhere.'

'He used ta hate it,' Rogue spoke up without looking away from the window, 'Him and Belle got married on her birthday, and before that he used ta share her birthdays with her; but after a while he just stopped letting anyone try and give him a birthday. He didn't want their pity, that's what he used ta say.'

Scott and Bishop were listening now too. The discussion with Hank had ended some time ago and there was nothing more to do but wait and see what happened. Scott came and took his seat next to Jean while Bishop remained at the table.

'I'm guessing there's a good reason for you to mention this now, Psylocke?' Jean could hear the slight bite of reproach in Scott's tone and knew he hadn't appreciated Betsy's jibe at Rogue's expense. Scott despised bullying or backbiting of any sort.

Psylocke smiled faintly and Jean suspected the other woman had also detected the note of disapproval. She nodded, 'I think it likely that Gambit, if he's even still alive, won't be thrilled to see us. Considering that a lot of what we now know about Gambit he doesn't know about himself I think we should tread carefully.'

Jean nipped her lip as she realised what Betsy meant, 'You're right. If we tell Gambit what we know it could have the opposite effect than we want. He could get very angry.'

Scott frowned, eyebrows dipping low on his brow, 'Why?'

Logan snorted derisively from the back of the plane, 'Gumbo's gonna be more than angry, Redd. Cajun don't trust us; ain't sure he even likes most o' us all that much.' He flexed an ironic eyebrow Betsy's way. 'And some o' us have given him reason not t'.'

Logan spoke again before Betsy could comment, if that had been her desire.

'Gambit's worked damn hard t'keep his secrets from us all these years. Now it turns out we got the truth to some o' the biggest secrets in his life – stuff that he don't know but wants t'know.'

Logan snorted shaking his head darkly. 'Yeah, Gumbo's gonna be pissed as hell t'learn that we got more knowledge o' him then he has.' The shrewd blue eyes flashed, 'I've had that trick played on me before; didn't take t'kindly t'it neither.'

Scott's frown grew pensive, 'Then we don't mention it until we're all back safely at the mansion.'

Jean shook her head. 'That's not going to work,' she said looking up into the red quartz of Scott's visor.

'Think about it Scott; Gambit's not going to know why we're coming for him. He absolutely and completely believes that no one who knows the truth about the Morlock Massacre could ever accept or forgive him his part in it. He's going to assume we're there to take him down like we would any other threat to the team.'

Scott nodded, 'I understand that Jean,' he sounded like Cyclops but he smiled at her as her husband, but then he became thoughtful. 'Considering we're fairly sure that Gambit's not planning to walk away from any of this, do you really think he'll be hostile?' his expression thinned out into a frown.

'After all it seems to me that Gambit's been setting us up from the very beginning to be his executioners; maybe he's just waiting for us to arrive and carry out the sentence?'

* * *

**The Garden: Central Core**

Remy LeBeau screamed as a raw, pulsing channel of unadulterated, unfiltered knowledge crashed into his mind.

_Scott Thomas Summers May 27__th__ 1981……Ororo Munroe September 19__th__ 1981 …….Jean Grey December 17__th__ 1982…..Alexander Eugene Summers January 9__th__ 1984…………Lorna Dane April 21__st__ 1984…….Anna-Marie Culver August 6th__ 1985……._

Some basic instinct of survival kept him from flailing backwards as a welter of data flowed from Amanda Mueller to Remy through the medium of simple touch. Still, despite managing to keep himself physically orientated, Remy was left mentally spinning in a rip-tide of alien facts and facets of information.

He could feel knew information, new knowledge filling his mind like wet concrete; his thoughts were clogged with it. There was nowhere he could hide from the invasion. Somehow he knew that if he let this new knowledge settle in his mind he would be forever altered - he might even stop being Remy altogether. A little knowledge could be a dangerous thing, but a _whole lot_ of information was potentially lethal.

One stray thought crossed his mind as he fought to keep his sense of self being washed away in the deluge: _Is this what Rogue feels when she touches people?_

The thought of Rogue, conjuring her face from memory and bringing it forth to the forefront of his consciousness, allowed Remy to find his footing inside his own mind. Summoning every scrap of tattered shielding he still had, and dredging from his memories every little tip about psychic protection he'd ever filched from Xavier's private files, Remy diverted the useless, incomprehensible tidal flood of knowledge into the back reaches of his mind.

He opened his eyes and stared into the eerie glow of Amanda Mueller's empty eye sockets. Essex had said this woman had pieces of his brain grafted to her own and she obviously had his powers - she was glowing as brightly as he was - so that should mean that she'd think like he did, oui?

'Where are they?' Remy wasn't sure if he asked the question aloud or mind to mind; not that it mattered. Already the tiny fibrous tendrils of pure knowledge that crawled under her dried skin and broke free of closed off pores had begun to dig into his flesh and embed themselves under his fingernails as Remy clutched tight to his grandmother.

The Garden recognised her own, obviously, and sought to claim him once and for all.

'Where are they?' he repeated pushing his will against another wave of unwanted and confusing facts and data as it tried to steam roller into his consciousness. Ignorance was bliss; Remy had been born poor and stupid and he'd damn well die that way – thank you, kindly!

'Show me how to find them.' He gritted out through his teeth as finger-like twisting cords knotted into his hair, trying to seamlessly bind him to the spire as tightly as they had Amanda. It felt like he was being eaten alive. He squeezed his eyes tightly closed as the filament fine threads crept over his cheeks and tried to push under his eyelids.

'Show me!' A burst of pain, small but furnace bright, erupted in his left hand as one of the slithering tendrils pushed under his thumbnail and began digging into the sensitive nerves under the skin.

Other tendrils found the raw, oozing cuts across his upper back. It felt like the antennas of tiny insects were poking at the wounds. He could feel it when the tendrils began to weave together under his torn skin. It took everything in him not to start fighting back right then. He could feel the tendrils, like sinuous steel, begin to wind around his neck and slither under his clothes. Fire-fly bright sparks danced behind his eyes; flashes of alien insight and knowledge not his own gouging into his mind – changing him one secret at a time.

'Where are they?' he screamed, 'Show me how to find the Marauders!'

For one blindingly terrifying moment Remy thought he had made a horrible mistake. He thought that he would be swallowed alive by Sinister's Garden and become a living mummy just like Amanda.

Then there was a another swirl of information crashing through his mind - but this time it was not genetic markers and formulae that washed through his brain in a wave of liquid heat. No, this time he got the answer he craved. And a whole lot more besides.

'Merci, Grandmere, merci beaucoup.'

Remy smiled, even though doing so allowed some of the tendrils to snake between his lips. Gagging Remy jerked his head away; thin trails of crimson fire scorched over his cheeks as the tendrils left shallow cuts all across his face as they lost their grip.

Remy didn't care however, for in that moment, in a dozen different spots around the Central Core, numerous tesseracts opened up all at once. A number of men and women stepped through into Sinister's most secret playground. As one their eyes looked up to the tower – and to Remy.

The Marauders had arrived for the party - just as Remy had hoped.

* * *

**Worthington One: En-route to New Mexico**

Jean blinked in surprise at her husband's last words, while across the aisle Rogue grew ashen faced.

'You think Remy's setting us up to kill him?' Jean asked genuinely shocked.

Betsy was calm and unaffected but it was Logan who laughed gruffly moving forward to flop down in the seat next to Rogue so he could face the rest of the group. 'Finally figured that one out, did ya Cyke?'

Jean frowned, 'I don't understand that,' she raised her hand before anyone else could speak, 'I mean I understand that he thinks dying is the only way to make amends, but I can't believe that he'd ever be so cold as to make any of the team kill him.' She glanced from Rogue across the aisle to look into Ororo's eyes. 'I can't believe he'd put either Rogue or Ororo in that position.'

Betsy narrowed her eyes, 'That's what has been troubling me; if Gambit just wanted to die he could have manipulated Creed into it without any effort. He could have thrown himself off the mansion roof – bloody hell he could have done like any other self-respecting suicide would do and jumped into the Hudson.'

'We are missing something,' Ororo spoke pensively a strong pulse of frustration in her tone. 'Remy's actions make no sense. He has been baiting us all along – but at the same time he does not want our involvement; it smacks of misdirection, but I am not sure it is the X-men Remy is trying to deceive – or at least not us alone.'

'Explain Storm,' Scott was all Cyclops now as he frowned and sat forward in his seat. Warren appeared at that moment from the curtained off cabin crew area. His eagle eyed gaze took in the tense atmosphere without a word and he moved to slip into his seat beside Betsy. In a moment his lover had filled him in psychically on what he had missed.

'I know I'm not exactly Mr. Insight or anything,' Warren interjected, 'but could it be that you're all too emotionally invested to see things objectively?' he asked trying to sound as reasonable as he could so he didn't trigger any short tempers.

Surprisingly Ororo nodded her head in agreement, 'Yes; I believe that is exactly the problem. In fact I think it is part of Remy's plan.'

She glanced around the cabin, 'When we were partners together Remy would try and pass on his knowledge to me – mostly things he thought I would need to know to protect myself, rather than attempting to mould me into a better thief.' A slight smile touched her lips, 'Though I am sure that was part of it.'

She met each person's eyes in turn, 'He taught me the diamond ring con.'

Logan scratched at his sideburns with blunt fingers, 'Yer mean the one where yer polish up a glass stone on a cheap fake gold ring and tell some slob that it's yer granny's wedding ring, nine carats and top cut diamond and all, but yer got t'hock it fer a song 'cuz yer kid's sick an' yer ain't got medical insurance? That the one?'

Ororo's smile was sly, 'Precisely.' Her smile faded, 'I was dubious that such a transparent deception could ever work; Remy told me that it never failed.'

'Why?' Scott asked.

Jean blinked, 'Because people want to believe it.' She said with sudden clarity, 'Because people want something for nothing and everyone knows what it feels like to be desperate and desperate to help the ones they love. The con plays on the worst aspects of a person's nature, their greed, and the best, their sense of charity. It works because the fundamentals of human nature don't change.'

Scott was still frowning, 'Alright; I get that Gambit has a smoke and mirrors thing going on – what bearing does that have now? He's already reached his objective, which is Sinister; he doesn't need the subterfuge anymore.'

'Has he really achieved his objective?' Ororo's focus was inward, her mind churning fiercely behind her pensive frown. 'I am not so sure we truly know what Remy has planned.'

'Of course we do, he wants revenge on Sinister.' Scott was confused. Jean squeezed his hand.

'But what does that mean, Scott? Revenge can be almost anything; we're just assuming he wants Sinister dead because it's the most obvious – but that could be the con in this, the fake diamond ring, kind of thing.'

'But he's been trying to get to Sinister all this time.' Scott argued, 'why would he try and get to Sinister and _not_ want to kill him - that's not even suicide, it's practically volunteering to be the man's slave again.' Scott was growing exasperated.

'No he ain't,' Rogue spoke softly, 'Remy don't want nothin' ta do with Essex.' She looked at them all with tired eyes, 'He's been fixin' ta get ta this Garden place – Sinister's just the best way in.'

Ororo hissed suddenly, her elliptical eyes narrowing as a jolt of pure shock and realisation seared through her mind. At the same moment, the otherwise silent, Bishop smashed his fist down on the table top.

'Of course!' They both said at the same time before looking at each other. Bishop deferred to Ororo. Ororo's hands fluttered like caged birds for a moment before she pressed them firmly against her lap and began to explain.

'That is the fake diamond in the con; Remy is not a killer. He never was one.' Her eyes were wide as she stared at Jean and Scott and Jean thought there was something like relief – or maybe hope - in her eyes as well.

'Remy is a thief; that is what he is beyond all else. It is what he was raised from the cradle to be – a thief does not think as an ordinary man.' Ororo spoke rapidly as her certainty coalesced.

'Even if Remy could find a way to kill Sinister himself that would not be revenge enough; Remy wants to hurt Sinister as Sinister has hurt countless others before. Killing the monster does not achieve that aim.'

'Then what would; how do you _hurt _Sinister?' Scott asked truly dumbfounded. Jean gasped.

'Oh!' She clapped her hand to her mouth as she realised, 'Oh, of course.'

'What?' Scott was beginning to lose his patience as he floundered trying to understand, 'Jean, Storm, can someone _please_ explain?' The slight thread of wry confusion in his voice grew stronger. Warren and even Betsy seconded the question.

'Yes, I think we'd all like a little clarification,' Psylocke suggested coolly.

'Scott think about it – what does Sinister care about?' Jean asked excitedly.

Scott frowned and thought a moment, 'Well, the Summers' line for one.'

Jean nodded, 'Yes but why?'

'Because he's obsessed with mutant evolution and genetics,' Scott answered impatiently, 'Jean can we not do twenty questions right now? Just tell me what I'm missing.'

'Cyke hon,' Rogue sounded almost amused and her green eyes glowed with cynicism, 'Remy's a con-man and a thief. He don't want ta kill Sinister, he wants ta ruin him; there's a big ole difference between the two.'

It was then that the penny finally dropped for Cyclops too. Jean didn't need to be able to see her husband's eyes widening to feel the flare of his shock and sudden understanding.

'Shit – I get it now.' Scott whispered almost shakily. 'He's not planning to kill Sinister – he's planning to _rob_ him.'


	35. Chapter 35

**Chapter Thirty-Four: Rebellion**

**Almogordo De-commissioned Nuclear Research Facility: New Mexico**

'Well this is sure creepy.' Rogue murmured dryly shaking her curls off her shoulders and resting one hand on her hip.

'Stay sharp people,' Cyclops regarded the imposing silhouettes of the cooling towers and the rusted chain link fencing suspiciously. He'd been an X-man since he was sixteen and he'd learned in that time that abandoned research facilities were never, ever abandoned and that the greatest dangers lurked in the most innocuous places. 'Phoenix, Psylocke; can you detect any company?'

Both women shook their heads; and both had abstracted looks in their eyes as they concentrated on spreading their senses outward.

'I don't sense any living presences in the facility,' Psylocke confirmed, 'But my probes are being rebuffed by artificial psi-buffers about fifty feet beneath our feet.' She opened her eyes and glanced at Jean for a moment to see if the other woman had anything to add, 'I think the action is underneath us, not in any of the buildings we can see.'

Jean nodded, 'I agree,' she frowned a little, 'I have this strange sense of - something – all around us, but it's not a mind exactly.'

Cyclops frowned, 'What is it?'

Jean sighed, 'I don't know - but I'd bet my bottom dollar for doughnuts that Sinister will have some nasty surprises waiting for us.' She looked at each member of the team in turn, 'I think we should go ahead and assume that Sinister, or _someone_, knows we're here.'

Wolverine released his claws and the familiar 'snikt' noise seemed very loud in the still New Mexico desert darkness. 'Then let's quit chattin' and get movin'.'

Cyclops sighed and nodded. 'Head for the building over there – it looks more accessible then the cooling towers.'

It wasn't cold yet, but as the ground lost the heat it had absorbed from the sun throughout the day the empty, dusty dry environment grew increasingly chill and inhospitable. The spring sky was a blanket of stars, white as bone fragments and glittering in a cloudless darkness. The rocks and distant mountains faded into a shadowed horizon of mauve and indigo and the cooling towers and squat square brick buildings of the facility seemed as alien as a Shi-Ar homeworld in the silence.

The X-men moved forward; Wolverine and Psylocke scouting ahead. The latter shadow-phasing in and out of the inky pools of blackness and Wolverine's extended bone claws gleaming sickly in the faint star-light.

'You want aerial, Slim?' Archangel twitched his wings for emphasis. 'I know Betts said we need to go underground, but I wouldn't put it past Sinister to have some surprises waiting a little ways off, maybe planning to cut off our exits once we make it into the facility.'

Cyclops nodded, 'Good point War, do it – but keep your comm. on.'

'Sure thing Cyke,' Warren took wing instantly and the backdraught of displaced air kicked up a cloud of gritty dust in his wake. Cyclops boots crunched on the dry and brittle ground. This place really was just plain - _sinister_.

Fifteen minutes later the team had broken into one of the long, flat roofed, rectangular buildings standing in the shadow of the largest cooling tower. They found themselves in a defunct security room. Cobwebs and dust covered the archaic machinery that still remained. Wolverine paced around the room sniffing the air. The telepaths tried another scan.

'Rogue, Bishop, Storm – do a search of the rest of the buildings. Look for doors, hidden stairways, or elevators – or, hell, anything at all that looks suspicious.'

The three X-men nodded and left without comment. Cyclops walked over to the bank of surveillance equipment a frown touching his brow. Someone had gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to make this place look abandoned; too much trouble in fact. Even a de-commissioned nuclear facility would have a constant, round the clock surveillance team stationed there - if only to deal with the waste products or to make sure no dangerous elements could get hold of the facility for their own ends. _This_ facility, however, didn't even seem to have any CCTV cameras.

'He must be pretty sure no one can get in,' Cyclops muttered out loud. Wolverine turned to glance at him, easily picking up on the under the breath comment. He cocked his head questioningly, the action surprisingly canine in appearance.

'There's no security – everything of value has been stripped out of the upper levels of the facility. The only reason I can think of that Sinister would be so lax is if he was absolutely confident that no one in the upper levels would be able to get below ground.'

Wolverine grunted acknowledgement of that point, 'There ain't no fresh scents anywhere here; just dust and vermin.' He confirmed

Cyclops pinched the bridge of his nose, 'Sinister has his tesseracts, he doesn't need to use a front door. Damn it, there might not be a way down from here at all.'

Bishop entered the room from the corridor, 'The elevator shafts have been filled in. Storm, Rogue, and I have been unable to find any other access points in this building or any of the other outlying structures.' The two women stepped into the room behind Bishop, expressions grim and frustrated.

'What's the plan, Cyke?' Wolverine asked him sardonically.

Scott opened his mouth to say – well he wasn't sure what he'd planned to say – but whatever the case, he was cut off as the bank of cracked and dust filmed monitors to either side of him suddenly began squeaking and popping with static. The ground under all their feet reverberated with the subterranean boom of a huge, distant, generator or power source of some description grinding into life.

A grating computerised voice, vaguely female in harmonics, hissed through sand clogged speakers set up in the corners of the ceiling.

(Sqqqqquuuueeekkc…..) Sysssssteeeeemmmmmm…….Almogordo one…..systemmmmmmm operational…..initate…..(Sqqqqquuuuuuuaaaaccchhh) initiate……..'

Like something out of a hokey horror movie the old fashioned square monitors flashed into black and white life; first there was only a waterfall of lurid, painfully bright grey static then images began to flicker on screen. Cyclops saw a large chamber filled with cables and cords, and what looked like an overgrown rose garden; he saw a structure that resembled a massive old style electricity pylon glowing grey and lurid in the screens.

'What the – ?'

'Cyclops!' Archangel's voice sliced through the communications channels, lighting the red X on Cyclops' on comm. badge a bright red colour. 'I don't know what you just did in there but the cooling towers just lit up like the fourth of July out here.'

(ssssssssssskkkkksskskkks) ………Central Core initiate……sub-temporal spacial rift devices……..Marauders to Central Core transport…….Central Core mandate…….Marauders to Central Core…….(Skkskskskskskskkkkkk).

The images on the screens changed abruptly as if the channel had been flipped. Storm caught her breath abruptly and Rogue surged forward. On the screen something hideous appeared; a crucified human figure, stuck through with cables suspended from a spire in the centre of a hollow circular chamber set high above a narrow walkway. Crouched at the feet of the cruciform figure was a very familiar man in a trench coat.

'Remy!'

Almost as if he had heard her Gambit lifted his face directly towards the screen; blood dribbled down his cheeks from shallow cuts and his eyes were far too wide. A slightly maniacal grin twisted his features as he rose to his feet, arms spread out as if in welcome or surrender - there was blood dripping from his fingers. A loud pop and crackle of static filled the room and suddenly a distorted, fuzzy, but recognisable heavy Cajun accent filtered through the speakers.

'Alors mes braves – welcome to de party!'

* * *

**Central Core**

'Alors mes braves – welcome to de party!'

Remy LeBeau grinned and rose to his feet as the Marauders stepped through the opened tesseract portals and looked around them, getting their bearings in this unfamiliar location. It didn't take long for them to spot him, perched high above their heads, and when they did their faces were a picture.

'Gambit!'

He opened his arms wide and greeted his erstwhile never-quite team mates with a smile; milking th situation for all it was worth. 'Mais oui, mes amis, it is I,' he ruined the moment by winking, 'been a while, non?'

The Marauders response to his pithy greeting was unanimous and less than friendly; in the very heart of Sinister's Garden all hell summarily broke loose.

The Marauders, freshly hatched from cloning tanks and rudely transported from one lab to the mother of all labs, were clearly not in the mood for catching up on old times – they decided to take matters into their own hands, not even waiting for Essex's orders.

Alas when dealing with half a dozen hardened mercenary killers and psychotics, taking matters into their hands did not mean sitting down like grown-ups and talking over their grievances in a calm and controlled manner. Non, it meant attacking the interloper, and the man who was also responsible, to a greater or lesser extent, for turning them over to Sinister in the first place. They opened fire with guns, pointy projectiles, and foot-long harpoons with the intention of turning one charming Cajun into so much hamburger meat.

This suited Gambit just fine.

Remy skipped deftly around and behind the body of Amanda while the fibrous tendrils of cable poked and stroked over his flesh.

'Mon grandmere – let flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.'

He whispered softly and with genuine sentiment ducking down at her feet and grabbing a fistful of the finger width cables trailing from the backs of her legs. He yanked them out by the handful and did not resist as those cables began curling like vines around his palms. Fox-fire sparks ignited in the back of his mind – little whispered secrets in a thousand microchip voices.

The barrage of death aimed at Gambit hit the spire and Amanda first; Remy prayed that what was left of the woman was too far gone to feel pain.

Glowing explosive harpoons and bits of bone shaped throwing stars lanced into the spire, slicing through the thinner data cables in showers of sulphur orange sparks. Bullets and blades sheared into Amanda's atrophied flesh but the body did not react. In fact, it was only Essex himself who raised any objection.

'No you imbeciles - not the machines!' Sinister blasted Harpoon, who happened to be nearest, with an energy beam from his fist. The Inuit smashed into the walkway railings with enough force to snap his spine and fell bonelessly to the ground.

Remy smiled; he hadn't really expected to make much headway with Harpoon anyhow. Let Sinister destroy his own soldiers; it was all good as far as he was concerned.

'Dat's right mon braves, you jus' keep fightin' among yo'sel's an trashin' de place; it's what you good at, oui?'

Remy continued to pluck the serpent-like cables from Amanda's flesh. He did not object as the sinuous squirming pieces of semi-sentient cable moved like leeches over his hands and forearms, latching on with tiny hook like appendages and digging into his skin. He curled his bloody hand around one of the thicker cables intertwined with Amanda's spine. Instantly he felt the flare of information transfer – the Garden trying to peel apart the layers of his mind and plant her own seeds therein. The reality was as unpleasant as the analogy; more so actually.

'Protect de Garden.' He murmured silkily in Amanda's ear. The body shuddered and the energy running through the thick cables sprouting from her abdomen changed colour, from glowing yellow to angry red.

_Initiate safety protocols Alpha-Omega nine?_

The question was posed inside his own mind. Remy gave the equivalent of a mental shrug; oui, an' one through eight, too, eh? We got a lot of security threats, non?

_Understood; Central Core breach – targets locked – lethal response._

Remy smiled; talk about service.

'Mais oui, c'est tres bien; de more lethal de better mon grandmere.' Filaments no larger than the thin hair sprouting from his own forearms extended from the formerly smooth thicker cables riddling Amanda's torso; those filaments were sharp as slicing blades and forced their way through the palm of Remy's hand as he laid it flat against his grandmother's spine. No pain, no gain - but damn this hurt.

Remy squeezed his eyes closed and winced, swallowing back the pain. Around him the central core came alive to the threats all around it. Primary among those threats was the homme screaming his lungs out well below the spire.

'Do not damage the machines – contain the thief or suffer the consequences.'

Remy opened his eyes and blinked through the pain; a smile briefly flashed over his features as he saw that the Marauders and Sinister were having some problems below him. Gun turrets had opened up from secret panels in the walls and were now pelting the walkway with laser fire. The damage was minimal against a nigh near invincible Sinister and a group of bodies that rose from the dead more often then Lazarus, but it was cumulative in effect and distracting as hell.

Plus Sinister was not pleased and that was always a bonus.

'Oui m'sieur, you got you a domestic dispute; Mandy don be likin' how you be treatin' her and her kin.'

Remy smirked – it had been a stroke of sublime stupidity on Sinister's part, going and giving the Garden and Mueller his brain. Mon dieu, Remy had had a life time of trying to deal with being himself and he was still screwing up – there was no way a sensible megalomaniacal genius would go and do something that dumb.

Give a semi-sentient database of mutant evolution the brain of a living mutant; d'accord, there was some sense to that. Give it the brain of a homme that hates you? Non, Remy could not see Essex's reasoning there at all. Not to mention that Remy would be the first to admit he was pretty fucked up in the head; what with his cornucopia of bad habits, the various mismatched neurosis, his tendency to lie like an old rug, his trust issues – the dash of kleptomania…….

Mon dieu, perhaps monsieur Essex had him a really, really well buried masochistic streak after all?

Grabbing hold of one of the body-width dangling data cables that had been sliced in half by Harpoon Remy wrapped the tensile cord around his waist, grabbed it in his hands, and took a running leap off the spire, swinging down towards the walkway like a particularly flash Tarzan. He refrained from uttering any kind of battle cry, however; a homme had to have some standards after all.

At the last moment, when he was still too far from solid ground, a very neatly placed bullet bisected the damaged cable in half at its weak point and suddenly Remy was falling.

Well what goes up, must come down, n'est pas? Yet dying now, like this, would be tres, tres anti-climatic. Better do something about that, non?

Twisting in mid-air Remy caught a faint flash of Grey Grow, perched on the edge of the railings with his scoped rifle aimed and ready. It was only an instant though and in the next he was in movement spinning through the air like a very acrobatic shooting star. As he tumbled he aimed himself directly towards the railing Grey Crow was perched on.

* * *

**Almogordo Security Pavilion**

'Cyke we need ta be in there NOW.' Rogue turned away from the flashing screens as the Marauders and Sinister opened fire on Remy and the weird octopus woman thing. She had no idea what was going on, the audio link kept spritzing in and out.

'I'm open to suggestions Rogue.' Cyclops snapped. He had dispatched Storm and Archangel to check out the cooling tower. Wolverine and Bishop were doing a double check that there were no access routes into the lower reaches of the building and Jean and Psylocke were trying to get a feel for just where the hell Gambit and Sinister actually were.

'Cyclops!' Storm's imperious voice hit every exposed nerve Scott had as it crackled over the comm. channel.

'What is it Storm?' somehow from her tone he did not think it was good news.

'We have company; Warren has spotted a combat helicopter headed this way from the direction of Albuquerque.'

Cyclops blinked in surprise and across the room Rogue tore her attention from the flickering screens long enough to curse before rushing out of the room to take to the skies herself. 'Military?'

'I……do not believe so.' Storm's voice was hesitant. 'I can see something else flying alongside the craft….it looks like…….'

There was a long and painful pause, 'Goddess preserve me, it is _Polaris_!'

* * *

**Central Core**

Remy reached out desperately and managed to catch one of the lower rungs of the railings. He dangled for a moment, horribly exposed from all angles. The only thing keeping him from a long drop into certain death was the vice-grip he had on the railings and the edge of the walkway.

Looming above him like the spaghetti western visage of death Scalphunter stood on the platform walkway, his big black boots inches from Remy's vulnerable fingers. The muzzle of his multi-purpose rifle pointed steadily at Remy's forehead.

'Hey kid,'

'Monsieur Reaper Man,' Remy gritted out, his grip beginning to loosen. He looked up at the man, 'Dis gon be payback for Arizona den?' he asked mildly.

Scalphunter sneered, teeth flashing in his dark tan face. Without a word the Marauder threw his rifle down and reached to yank Remy up and over the railings to (relative) safety.

Remy fell onto the platform and instantly Scalphunter's knee was pressing down on his back. He felt the cold kiss of a pistol pressed just behind his left ear.

'You're insane, kid. You should have run when you took me out; you can't beat Essex Remy.' The harsh whisper in his ear didn't sound like Scalphunter, instead it sounded like Grey Grow.

'Beaten him already, homme,' Remy whispered back, urgently. 'Got a sample o' his DNA an' sent it to Belle. Mon Capitan Cyclops an' de X-men know de score too; dey gon be on de way soon 'nough.' Remy smiled even with his cheek pressed painfully against the grated floor, 'Mebbe ole Remy ain't gon live to see Essex go down, but de homme goin' down all de same.'

Scalphunter's free hand, which had been knotted in the hair at the back of Remy's head, grew still. Remy could feel the tension running through the man's body. 'Shit.' He whispered.

Remy chose that moment of distraction to surge upwards and twist around. One fist he aimed for Scalphunter's throat and the other hand grabbed hold of the pistol.

Scalphunter gagged falling backwards defensively as Remy kicked him off and jumped upwards. He threw the appropriated gun backwards; the charged metal exploded in mid-air and forced the sneaking Vertigo into open retreat. Still, the reprieve did not last long. Riptide was tearing up a swathe of destruction and headed straight for him.

'An' de fun just keep on comin',' Remy launched himself upward somersaulting over Scalphunter's head and the black swathed mercenary hit the deck to avoid being turned into a mutant pin cushion in a hail of not particularly friendly fire.

'Sil vous plait – dis is not de way to have a conversation!'

Gambit flipped arcing heels over head and head over heels in the air. At the apex of his mad aerial pirouette he tucked his knees in and wrapped his arms around his legs before uncoiling to land easily on the balls of his feet safely on the solid ground of the central core walkway a good twenty feet behind Riptide.

Nevertheless a barrage of shuriken still punctured the air and embedded themselves in the railings, the steel flooring grates, and the walls all around him. It took the whirling dervish less than a second to change course and come for him again. Tempting fate Remy bounced around like Tigger on acid, avoiding the tide of projectiles with natural aplomb. He tried to convince himself he wasn't enjoying it, but didn't succeed; c'est la vie, chalk it up to another personality flaw. He'd been toying with suicide so long he'd come to enjoy flaunting death.

Hell, considering that big old self-destructive streak in him it was a wonder he was even still alive.

'Miss me, miss me; now you got to kiss me,' He sing-songed as he cart-wheeled along the circular walkway dodging more flesh shredding projectiles and a hail of bullets.

Still as much as it was just simple fun to taunt the Marauders Remy did still have a strategy to employ. Therefore he made sure to stop at strategic points around the room; most especially those parts of the chamber where Essex's machines of doom were located. He smiled as one piece of kit after another was rendered useless and in flames in a storm of bullets and bony bits.

Another blast of cold ruby red energy seared across the room and sent Scalphunter, Riptide, and Vertigo scattering like ten pins.

'Cretins - he is trying to provoke you!'

Remy landed and turned to smirk at Sinister across the expanse of the circular chamber. He met the red eyes and saw the fury and the understanding in that cold fire.

Oui Essex knew now; he knew that Remy would not rest until he had turned every weapon the connard had against him. His Jardin, his Marauders – fuck, Remy might as well include himself in that list as well. Oui, this was a full-blown rebellion and the minions were out to take down hell itself.

Still Remy might have been feeling a tad too pleased with himself, however, and clearly someone above or below had decided to take him down a peg or two. He had also forgotten the presence of one very 'special' lady. It didn't matter though, for the lady in question knew how to get a man's attention. Suddenly the entire walkway rocked with the force of a sonic punch and Gambit tumbled into a dazed heap; cheek scraping against the grating as he fell heavily.

'Well cutie, y' asked for it.'

Strong hands grabbed him by the back of his coat and hauled him off the floor; nearly garrotting him at the same time. Before he could react he was slammed backwards into the wall, hard enough to make him see stars. As his vision cleared he had just long enough to see Arclight grinning at him before the Marauder's tongue was forcibly inserted halfway down his throat.

'Mmmmhhhfff!' Savagely the woman once known as Phillippa Sontag wrenched Remy's arms behind his back and twisted his body so he was doubled backwards, in a painful parody of the classic romantic smooch. Unbalanced and with his hands trapped Remy didn't have many options available to him but to dangle from her arms like a damsel in distress.

After a rather long time, during which Remy wondered if it was possible to die of suffocation while being rather brutally French kissed, Arclight abruptly let go of him and he fell gracelessly onto his ass on the floor, lips swollen and bleeding and more than a trifle breathless.

The Marauder was still grinning at him even as she made a show of licking a little of his blood from her mouth, 'Mmmm-mmmm, sweet and spicy, just like I remember.'

'It's de toothpaste I be usin',' Remy told her a little dazedly as he gathered his legs underneath him and rather neatly pivoted and ducked behind the powerfully built woman. 'You save me from your buddies an' m'sieur Essex an' I give you another taste, oui?'

Phillippa laughed, 'And why would I do that? I hate you remember?' The whirling dervish Riptide advanced on them from further up the walkway. Shrapnel flew in all directions from the cyclone he kicked up around him and Remy locked his arms around Phillippa's washboard abs still using her as a human shield.

'Chere – you hate me? Since when?' he asked mock-surprised and with calculated accident allowed one of his hands to brush her right hip, gliding over the jutting bone to stroke down her abdomen. Phillippa grabbed his hand, spun around, and caught him by the throat with the other. Once again Gambit found himself slammed into the wall.

'Since you sold me out to Sinister, asshole.' She snapped, but even so there was a smile playing over her lips, 'You've got to be crazy as 'Hunter said to think I'd ever help you. I'm gonna enjoy watchin' you bleed.'

Remy smiled. In some semblance of team work Riptide had backed off a little to let Arclight have first dips at him, which was exactly as Remy had hoped. 'Phillippa cherie, you got to open your horizons; dere more to life den killin''.

'Not for me; not now,' Something almost human flickered in the dark depth of the woman's unnaturally dull eyes. 'I'm just Sinister's pet killer now.'

Remy's eyes flashed; yes he had definitely heard the faint, tired whisper of resentment and anguish there. He could work with that.

'I can get you out o' your contract, Phillippa; I got you int' dis mess, cherie, I willin' to get you out of it.' He licked his lips as Phillippa's rough edged nails dug into the delicate flesh under his chin. In his peripheral vision he could see Essex advancing on him. He had only seconds to make this count.

'I din't know what he'd do to y'all, Phillippa. I'm sorry. Help me cherie an' I make it so dat he can't get to you no more – break his mental controls. You get to have your free will back – you get to make your own choices again.'

Arclight back-handed him; for a handful of moments all Remy was aware of was the ringing in his ears and the half-numbed tingle running through the muscles of his neck and jaw. The femme had damn near broken his neck with that smack. It took him a moment to realise he'd fallen to his knees.

Arclight twisted her hands into his hair and wrenched his head up, 'Don't even think of charming me.' She hissed. He smiled at her, tonguing the blood oozing thickly from the side of his mouth.

'Who's charmin'?' he asked his tone as cold and crisp as hers, 'I got you int' dis mess, Phillippa, I can get you out o' it.'

'Bullshit.' Arclight's hand tugged harder on his hair forcing Remy to his feet and then jerking his head down and to the side once he was standing. Remy reached out and grabbed the sides of her face with glowing hands. He darted forward and kissed the woman; predictably she let go of his hair. Remy jerked back.

'Mebbe, but ask yo'sel' dis,' Remy spoke rapidly; Sinister was coming and it was now or never. Either he would fail now, because he had debts to pay, or he would win. It was as simple as that; the choice wasn't even his anymore. Remy caught a glimpse of Grey Crow's dark shadow following Sinister.

He focused on Phillippa once more; he put the full force of his personality into his words – but not one word was a lie. 'If'n I'm bullshittin', Phillippa, den why did I call y'all back here, eh? Don' seem to be helpin' my odds havin' de Marauders here, non? – less'n I'm on de level? _I will free you from him_ but I'm gon need your help.'

Arclight blinked once, she opened her mouth to speak but a flash of blood-fire light behind her back caught Remy's attention. He knocked the woman flat and covered her with his body. Sinister's energy beam left ice-fire coldness stinging the air inches above their heads. For a frozen moment in time he stared down into Phillippa Sontag's dead eyes.

'You're a fool.' She told him.

'Mebbe, mebbe not – dat's sort of up to you, non?'

Gambit rolled off Arclight instantly and tumble rolled out of the line of fire. Essex was on to his little game now though and another energy blast was timed just so. The beam tore a hole in the grating just in front of Remy and he had to flip and roll awkwardly to avoid falling through it.

When he regained his balance another energy beam was waiting to smack the air from his lungs and the wits from his head. He ended up in a crumpled heap against a pile of smoking machinery. He heard the triumph in Essex's voice even through the ringing in his ears.

'Contain the thief.'

* * *

**Almogordo Security Pavilion**

Cyclops, Psylocke, and Phoenix all filed out of the building as the apache helicopter touched down in the centre of Almogordo. Storm and Warren remained in the air, and wary, as Polaris touched down in a wave of greenish glowing energy beside the helicopter.

Wolverine and Bishop soon joined the rest of the team as they watched the side door of the helicopter slide open. Wolverine's nose twitched and Rogue's jaw dropped open as a pair of long, smooth, pale feminine legs appeared out of the door of the helicopter and a blonde woman dressed in a dark leather cat-suit accented in deep mauve stepped from the craft.

'Oh mah lord this just gets better and better.' Rogue's voice was poison.

The blonde woman turned her face towards them and strode confidently forward. As she did so Scott finally placed her. His eyes widened behind his visor as he recognised Gambit's estranged wife.

'Bon nuit, X-men,' Belladonna Boudreaux slithered over to them. There was a mini-uzi strapped to her back and a number of other guns and knives secured to her shapely figure in numerous places. The other person to step from the helicopter should not have been a surprise to Scott but he was.

'Alex.' It was almost a groan. Alex and Lorna walked side by side in Belladonna Boudreaux's wake.

Rogue stepped forward as Cyclops gave the signal for Storm and Warrant to land and get into formation. He didn't think the newly arrived trio meant trouble but he wasn't taking any chances.

'Belle whatchure doin' here?' Rogue demanded planting herself firmly between the blonde woman and the rest of the team. A pair of cool, amused violet eyes flicked over the X-men's Mississippi Belle with benign contempt.

'Fulfillin' a contract, _chere,' _the Cajun woman all but purred and gestured behind her for something in a slim-line case Alex promptly handed to the woman. Belle regarded the assembled X-men with the detached interest of a hunting cat.

'Tell me, what de X-men be doin' here?'

* * *

**Central Core**

A wave of nausea staggered Remy has he tried to find his feet. His vision swam with ugly black and sickly yellow spots and he spied Vertigo standing at the curve of the walkway fifty yards ahead. She waved at him with an impish grin before reaching out with a hand towards him once more intensifying the dizziness that made the bottom drop out of his stomach.

A cold hand, like the grip of death, scruffed Remy at the back of the neck, 'Your fun is over, LeBeau; consider your rebellion quelled.'

Sinister picked him up by the back of the neck and hurled him forward. Dizzy and sick Remy didn't have a chance of protecting himself from the impact with the metal wall.

Boneless he slid down the wall; he could feel the jarring burn of cracked ribs. The whole right side of his body was numb from his shoulder down to his hip; pins and needles erupted throughout his body in agonising waves a split second later. He coughed a mouthful of blood and watched as Essex advanced on him with Vertigo at his right and Riptide to his left.

The red diamond in the centre of Essex's forehead erupted into cold light. 'Did you really think you could 'save' them, thief?' he asked chill and mocking. The smile was no more than the bearing of serrated teeth. 'You are fool indeed; the Marauders are mine - just as you are.'

Remy didn't waste breath on a snappy rejoinder; he moved sluggishly and suspected that his right shoulder was dislocated. He stared up over Sinister's shoulder. He saw Scalphunter and Arclight near the chamber door; they were talking, heads close together. Remy realised he was holding his breath; he saw Scalphunter look at him. He saw the other man nod once and something relaxed fractionally inside him.

He didn't care what happened to him, so long as Essex couldn't use him to hurt another living soul again, but it wasn't just the Morlocks Remy owed a blood debt too. Once upon a time the Marauders had been more than just mindless killers. Once upon a time they had been people. Bad, crooked people, oui, but then Remy hadn't been any better, not really. The only difference between him and Phillippa, say, was that he hadn't been quite as broken as she was when Sinister got his hooks in, and he'd managed to escape.

The damned should stand by the damned. He'd made a number of promises on his life and soul and one of those was to Phillippa and Grey Crow. Everyone had the right to seek redemption; _everyone_.

Essex reached down and wrapped his hand around Remy's throat once more. 'Prism, bring me the neural disruptor.'

The silent, and mostly pointless, crystal Marauder stepped forward from whatever shadowy space he had found to loiter in. He handed Sinister a long metal wand looking device. The thin cylinder was made of black metal and was indented on the base with a diamond motif; Remy felt his eyes widen. He started to struggle but it was no good, especially with one side of his body useless and numb.

'No!'

He kicked and bucked as Prism reached down to hold his head steady and Riptide kept his body pinned. Vertigo focused her sickening powers directly on him and Remy shuddered, vision shattering into lurid pin-wheels of green and yellow and red; senses swimming.

'I had hoped that simple survival reflex would make this move unnecessary.' Essex spoke through the psychedelic whirlwind inside Remy's mind; his words leaden and biting. The cold fingers swept the sweat tussled hair from Remy's brow almost gently and placed the indented end of the strange device against the very centre of his brow.

'In truth I had hoped to keep you mobile and utilise your skills as a thief for some years yet,' Essex was still droning on, his voice distorted by Vertigo's power. 'Alas your rebelliousness and propensity towards misguided acts of suicidal altruism have forced my hand. Goodbye LeBeau, know that you brought this fate on yourself.'

Essex pressed the end of the device into his forehead a little harder, enough that the diamond motif on the end started to leave a mark; a trickle of blood rolled down the bridge of his nose as the end of the wand broke his skin. Remy tried to jerk his head to the side but the combination of Prism's hold and Vertigo's spell defeated him. Against his forehead the device began to feel hot; like a concentrated laser focused through the diamond indentation.

Remy's heart thundered in his chest; he could feel the blood pounding through his veins and taste the metallic bite of adrenaline and fear on the tip of his tongue. He could not move, his half-numbed right hand was pinned under his body and his left was caught in Vertigo's surprisingly strong hold.

'No!'

Remy screamed again as something shot out of the end of the metal tube; something that burned and froze and corroded all at once. Remy had no idea what it was in truth but it felt like a needle the width of a pencil had just been punched through his skull with the force of a pneumatic drill. He screamed and he screamed as that drill bit bored into his brain.

The fingers of his right hand, still tangled with the cheese-wire sharp filaments of data cable cutting into his palms, scrabbled over the floor. The tips of his questing fingers brushed against the base of one of the large data cables sprouting from the wall and traversing the expanse of the chamber to the spire. The cable was one of the main arteries of power funnelling back and forth from the central core.

'Nooooooooo!'

Power and panic surged as one; his right hand closed around the cable. He saw red, he saw pink, he saw white, and he saw gas flame blue. A circuit closed in his mind and the Garden roared in fury against his pain.

'Nooooooo!' Remy howled as he felt Sinister's device trying to empty his mind of everything that made him who he was and gave him his will to resist. It felt like he was being cored like an apple, hollowed out, - his soul cauterised. He would become just like the rest of the Marauders; a dead man walking with no choices of his own.

Desperately he reached out with his mind; reached out to the Garden even as the Garden reached for him.

The agony impaling his mind became the focus of his entire existence; the world exploded and imploded at the same time in a crescendo of rage and defiance. He thought he heard gun shots and the reverberating boom of a sonic blast. He thought he heard Essex snarl in rage but he couldn't be sure. It was all a distant echo however. All he cared about was the surcease in the monstrous pain in his head. Remy threw his head back and howled.

'LET GO OF ME!'

* * *

**Almogordo Nuclear Facility**

Rogue's eyes narrowed at the feigned confusion in Belle's eyes and voice, 'We're here ta rescue one o' our own.' She snapped. Belle laughed sweetly.

'D'accord den I not be needin' to kill you all.' Deftly the Cajun woman side-stepped Rogue and fixed her eyes on Cyclops.

'Mon Capitan Summers,' her voice rubbed against Scott's ears like warmed black velvet, 'we seem to have an objective in common, non? You are 'ere for m' husband, as am I.' she offered up her free hand, 'I offer a temporary partnership; do you accept?'

Cyclops looked beyond the Cajun assassin to his brother and Lorna. Alex shrugged, 'The assassins have a silver bullet, Scottie; made to order just for Sinister.' He smiled crookedly, 'It's do or die time.'

Belle smiled and interposed herself between Scott's and his brother smoothly. She offered him the slim-lined metal case. 'It be untested, but dis syringe full o' trouble should deal de diamond headed connard some serious hurtin'.' Her smile twitched, 'It made o' a very special recipe; if'n m' husband were to know what's in it, well, he would either laugh hisself sick or cry blood.'

Cyclops almost unconsciously reached out for the case and opened it. In a bed of lilac satin sat a large pneumatic syringe full of a lurid bright red liquid. He looked from the case to Belladonna. The woman smiled tight-lipped.

'And you're giving this to me?' he asked incredulous.

'M' husband 'ad very strict instructions – he insisted dat you be given de weapon to use against de homme.'

She frowned faintly and her voice shifted clearly in imitation of Gambit's speech patterns, "Summers an' his woman been hurt de most o' any left livin' by Essex; Summers got him a good 'ead on his shoulders. He should decide if'n de connard live or die."

'Why? Why give this to me?' Cyclops stared, 'Gambit refused to confide or trust in any of us; why is he giving up his greatest weapon now?'

Belladonna Boudreaux merely looked at him, almost pityingly. 'Ah cher, you don' know my husband at all, do you?'

A tension headache pinged to life at the back of Scott's head. He looked beyond the enigmatic Cajun to someone he hoped, perhaps vainly, would offer some sense. Polaris met his eyes and shrugged. Nevertheless she did speak up.

'Haven't you figured it out yet Scott?' she asked tiredly. 'Don't you realise what Gambit's trying to do? What he's trying to do for the _good_ of the X-men?'

Cyclops was about to demand an explanation when he felt, rather than saw, Jean stagger. Through their psychic rapport he felt a wave of shock and pain. Jean gasped and grabbed her head in her hands.

'Oh god – Remy!' Her green eyes grew huge and glazed as her psychic senses lashed out. 'Scott! I can hear him! I can hear him screaming in my mind!'

Scott pivoted turning to hold his wife. The New Mexico sky ignited into supernova light. He spun around to stare as the largest of the cooling towers erupted with energy.

'Oh shit.' Archangel hissed through his teeth as X-man and assassin alike gaped at the cooling tower.

Thousands of tonnes of reinforced concrete lit up like a massive fuchsia Christmas tree setting the night sky on fire with lurid pink sparks; it was almost beautiful.

'X-men – everyone - fall back!' Cyclops barked out seconds before the cooling tower blew to kingdom come.


	36. Chapter 36

**Chapter Thirty-Five: Revolution**

**The Garden: Central Core**

The mutant thief bowed his spine as Garden input cables uncoiled from the ceiling and rippled down the walls to tangle and intertwine with his flesh. The mutant's eyes flashed open; black as pitch and glowing like coals. His face contorted with rage and endless, almost mindless, defiance. His skin glowed white hot through the blood.

'LET GO OF ME!'

It happened too fast to stop it. Nathaniel Essex only had time to release the thief and save himself before the power erupted from LeBeau's pores.

'No!' he roared in futile complaint as the flash-fire eruption of energy ignited the oxygen in the air in utter silence.

Essex could do precious little to protect his tools and equipment against the devastation. The Marauders Vertigo, Riptide, and Prism were also lost in the silent, beautiful wave of energy that rose like a beam of heatless sunlight from the thief's body.

There was no explosion; the thief's power was too strong. Instead the wall behind him dissolved in a shower of atoms and the steel grated floor shimmered and rippled; in places fuchsia energy ate holes in the thick steel grating. Data cables throbbed with siphoned energy and coiled around the thief's limp form in something almost akin to an embrace. The power faded almost as fast as it had been released, flashing through the room like lightning fire before fizzling out. Thankfully the integrity of the chamber held - just barely.

LeBeau hung bonelessly in the embrace of the Garden; his face awash with blood and the ends of his hair spitting sparks. Nathaniel Essex had but seconds to salvage not just his most recent exploits but his entire life's work.

All his calculations, all his plans; how could it be that he had so thoroughly failed to anticipate the power of the thief's defiance? How could he have lost control so completely?

Moving rapidly towards one of the control podiums Essex planned to enter his own override codes to ensure that LeBeau could not access the Central Core and coerce the Garden into attack mode; he knew that the thief had partially bonded with the Garden already. He also knew that if he did not act now, while the thief was insensate, he would struggle to counter LeBeau's control of the Garden otherwise. Ironically, under any other circumstances, the speed of the mental integration of thief and Garden would have pleased him greatly.

Now however he was beginning to realise the fundamental flaw in his plan; LeBeau could not be allowed to control the Garden until Essex himself could control LeBeau and controlling LeBeau was proving surprisingly difficult.

Around him Essex could sense that the Garden was reacting to the influx of new sensory feedback from the thief; absorbing the backlash of his pain even while LeBeau was unconscious. The Garden had experienced pain only once before and would be inoperative for a handful of moments until it had compensated for the shock; Essex still had a chance.

He had but moments to re-assert his control.

* * *

**Perchance to dream: the undiscovered country**

'_To be or not to be that is the question……whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or take arms against a sea of troubles and in opposing end them……..'_

The flamingos in the fountain and the alligators in the pool were one thing but Remy could not figure out for the life of him why Wolverine was wearing a Viking helmet and balancing on an exercise ball reciting the famous soliquey from Hamlet.

'Oooookay, dis be a petit bit weird.' He whistled through his teeth eyes scanning the surrounding area.

The wide swathes of manicured lawns glowed like liquid emerald and the sun beat down on the crystal clear waters of the pool like fire. The alligators looked happy enough that's for sure. He watched Capitan Cyclops throw lumps of raw meat to the 'gators while simultaneously manning the barbecue. He nodded in approval; the homme knew how to grill he'd give Summers that much credit.

'_To die, to sleep no more - and by a sleep to say we end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.'_

Cyclops looked up at him sharply, red light throbbing behind his visor, 'We need more hot sauce Gambit. After you've re-wired the electrics in the boat house and hacked Sinister's genetic database I want you to run out and get some. Take the blackbird – it's faster than public transport.'

'Pardon?' Remy stared at him and at that moment Jean Grey sauntered by toward the pool carrying a plate of water melon slices. She was wearing a black satin cape and a red leather corset. A nimbus of fire roiled around her frame. She stopped and frowned at him.

'Gambit can you hear me? Please answer me if you can hear me. Are you okay?'

'Eh?'

Jean's voice didn't match the scene. She sounded worried and alarmed her voice distant and distorted as if coming through to him from a faulty connection. The flaming halo wreathing her frame writhed and shivered. Confused Remy shook his head and walked on.

'T'ink I prefer de Viking Wolverine.'

* * *

**Central Core**

Nathaniel Essex reached toward one of the control consoles situated around the circular walkway; a single gunshot exploded the gel-pack hand sensor before Essex could place his palm to it. He whipped around in time to receive a gun shot wound to the head courtesy of the once loyal Scalphunter. He staggered to the side away from the console; his flesh ejected the bullet instantly and the diamond centred on his forehead pulsed.

'In-grate, you will pay for this treachery.' Curling his lips from his teeth Essex concentrated on the psi-triggers he had placed in all his Marauder clones. The trigger would give Scalphunter an instant, and fatal, brain aneurysm; a fitting punishment for this foolishness. It was simply staggering how easily LeBeau could incite utter chaos with his mere presence alone.

The old mercenary shook his head dispassionately. There was neither respect nor fear in his regard as he faced Essex. 'A mercenary knows when to cut and run. I go where the power is – and at the moment that ain't with you.'

Scalphunter raised his gun again, pieces of metal debris from the chamber melding with his flesh like liquid scale armour, reacting to the man's unusual but fairly superfluous mutation. Essex flipped the psi-trigger. He waited for his minion to collapse to the ground dead.

Scalphunter stumbled back, blinking his eyes for a moment. Essex smiled in anticipation only to receive a face full of lead a second later. He reeled backwards, falling against the guard rails more from shock than injury.

'You just don't get it, do you?' the mercenary actually dared mock him, 'You ain't running this show anymore Essex; the kid's got you on the ropes.'

Scalphunter shot again – and kept shooting. Essex reached out with his artificially grafted psionic sense; he reached for the death trigger in Scalphunter's brain. He discovered something decidedly alarming. The psi-triggers in these newest clones had not been activated; the clones had been released without the proper procedures in place. Essex's eyes widened as he understood the implications.

There was revolution in the Garden

* * *

**Almogordo - cooling tower wreckage**

'Sonofabitch,' Jean Grey-Summers rarely swore but when she did everyone paid attention. Much like now.

'Phoenix?' her husband and her field leader turned to her, the visor guard instantly snapping into place as he turned away from blasting rubble away from the crater left in the wake of the eradicated cooling tower.

'I had him, Scott; I had a glimpse of Gambit's mind but I lost the connection before I could make contact.' Jean fumed but turned her energy to something constructive instead of sulking. She concentrated on a large piece of crumbling steel enforced concrete and lifted it clear of the partially excavated hole with the force of her mind and will alone.

'Remy is alive?' Ororo was controlling the air currents to keep the energized dust filling the air in motes of shimmering pink light from choking them all.

Jean nodded, 'Yes; I can't tell you more than that, but he's definitely alive.' She paused, 'He might be semi-conscious. I think I'd have gotten more reaction if he'd been awake when I found him.'

Belladonna Boudreaux stood quietly a few paces away, surveying the wreckage with a critical eye. A combatant worthy of respect, Boudreaux was still only human and therefore could not offer much in the way of assistance clearing the rubble.

'Dis remind me o' de 'gator dat got int' Tante's outhouse.' She mused absently reaching out a cupped palm to catch some of the thick, filtering dust in her palms; it tingled like a static shock as it settled against her skin.

'We were sixteen. He only meant to scare de critter back out into de bayou.' She shook her head, 'dere weren' even bones left o' de t'ing once he was done.' She glanced over at the X-men, 'Dat de firs' time I ever been close t' scared o' m' Remy-boy.'

'Gambit vaporised an alligator when he was sixteen?' Cyclops asked precisely.

'Oui,' Belle's lips quivered, 'It be kind of funny to t'ink on it. De t'ing gon an' glowed like someone done shoved a neon lamp up its ass; den it wen' _'pop'_.' She did laugh then, 'De look on his face when he realise what he done,' she shook her head fondly.

No one knew quite what to say to that, and therefore Havok's shout was a welcome distraction.

'Pay-dirt!' Alex Summers shouted up from the bottom of the crater. 'There's metal under the rock down here; probably adamantium. We think it might be a door.'

'Is there an opening – or do you think it can be broken through?' Cyclops demanded crouched at the edge of the crater looking down to where Alex, Lorna, and Bishop had been working to drill down into the earth with their powers.

The energy blast, which everyone assumed was Gambit's doing, had destroyed the cooling tower in a searing wave of energy. That power had just wiped the tower out of existence leaving mounds of glowing powder, dust, and the occasional larger piece of wreckage to litter the ground. Recognising an opportunity the X-men had begun to bore down into the ground under the former base of the cooling tower. Now it looked like their enterprise was about to be rewarded.

Alex, Lorna, and Bishop exchanged shrugs, 'It feels like the metal plating goes right under the ground throughout the complex,' Lorna said eyes closed in concentration, 'I can't just rip it out of the ground.'

'I could probably heat the adamantium up to near liquid form,' Alex suggested, 'Rogue could try and punch a hole in it at the weak point after that.'

Rogue, who had been hovering halfway down the hole, watching the backs of the other three in case of a sudden collapse of the hole, nodded, 'Just tell me where to hit, sugar.'

Cyclops nodded, 'Do it.'

His brother gave him an ironic bow that ended with one finger extended. Cyclops decided to ignore the gesture for the moment; later he and Alex would have a long talk, possibly in the Danger Room, and probably with the aid of boxing gloves.

Cyclops turned around as Psylocke shimmered out of a patch of dust choked shadow and approached, the Crimson Dawn tattoo glowing rusty red in the shadows. 'There's something happening below us.' She said without pre-amble. 'The monitor screens in the security room are active again.'

'What have you seen?' Storm asked intently.

Betsy Braddock smiled viciously, 'A bloody revolution – that's what I saw.'

* * *

**Perchance to dream: the undiscovered country**

'_Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished…….'_

Belle floated in the pool in a bright yellow inner tube wearing a rather scandalous lilac bikini dusted with diamonds. She sipped from a tall glass of iced tea and the 'gators gave her a wide berth. Remy blew his wife a kiss and Belle snatched out a hand fast as a wink to catch it.

'_The pangs of despised love, the law's of delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of th' unworthy takes…..'_

Jasmine hung heavy in the air and the mouth watering aroma of hot rolls and jambalaya floated on the balmy breeze. Riots of colour from the flower beds glowed in shades of lavender, sun flower yellow, pinks and reds and blues.

'_To die, to sleep…to sleep perchance to dream: ay there's the rub……..'_

Remy bent down to inhale the scent of the wild roses twinning around the trellises and as he straightened up le Professeur caught his eye. Xavier nodded to him politely across the garden before placing his white rook on the chess board and returning to his game. Remy blinked when he realised that Xavier's opponent was Jean-Luc. His Pere turned around and smiled faintly at him.

'_For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.' _

A ripple of laughter grabbed his attention. His cousin Emil Lapin was attempting to wrangle one of the flamingos with little success but much amusement from his audience; the laughter had come from Rogue. Remy smiled faintly, as he watched the southern belle flirt with his cousin and finding that he didn't care. It was good to see Rogue happy again.

'_Soft you now, the fair Ophelia!'_

'Chile you gon stand dere all day or you gon sit an' eat somet'ing?'

Tante Mattie, radiant and wrinkled, stood by a long table decked with a pristine white lace table cloth and laden with food. She frowned at him gently, an expression he had seen a thousand times before in the recesses of his memory. She nodded to a single chair facing all that food.

'Banquet o' de soul, Remy-chile; you need to fortify yo'sel' for de work ahead.' She began dishing him up a huge heap of food. Remy didn't even realise he'd sat down until he'd shovelled the first glorious mouthful of food between his lips. He moaned blissfully; the mouthful was the taste of home and happiness.

'…_.to take arms against a sea of troubles and in opposing…..'_

'Tante am I dead?' he asked after a moment, swallowing his last mouthful and watching as Mercy waltzed over the lawns with his brother Henri. His brother and his sister-in-law looked so happy that Remy had to look away. Henri was dead and gone and the dull ache of grief flared anew in his chest.

Mattie was watching him and her dark, fathomless eyes were full to the brim with love and affection, 'Non chile, it not be your time to die yet. Dark t'ings be comin' to an' end, Remy, but dis not be your end; you barely even begun.'

'_To grunt and sweat under a weary life……. _

The sun disappeared between the clouds and the garden was plunged into shadow; the breeze turned chill. 'I'm tired tante.' He whispered honestly.

* * *

**Central Core**

'You cannot harm me,' Essex hissed eyes narrowed to glowing slits as he watched the dark clad figure approach, gun raised. Scalphunter did not bother to answer. He simply blasted at Essex's right thigh causing the geneticist to stumble for a second - which was just long enough.

Arclight darted past him with surprising swiftness considering her bulk and knelt beside LeBeau's limp form. She began to check the thief over for injuries in efficient manner. The data cables coiling around the thief's body like the lengths of a boa constrictor did not react to her presence; blood drenched the thief's lolling head. The look Arclight gave Essex was a strange one; there was an unusual focus and clarity to her gaze.

All around the man called Mr Sinister, a life time's work collapsed like castles built in the sand.

Essex took another step back from Scalphunter as the silent mercenary casually ejected a spent cartridge and jacked another shell into his rifle.

'Told you not to underestimate the kid, Essex; told you to leave him be.'

Nathaniel Essex stared beyond Scalphunter to the insensible thief dangling from the data cables. He raised one fist, summoning power. Scalphunter shot him in the chest. The blast went wide and sheared through the cables curling around LeBeau's waist.

The Garden shuddered and light filled the empty sockets of Amanda Mueller's eyes.

………_..Nathaniel…………..time to die……….Nathaniel………._

* * *

**Black Womb Gestation Chambers**

'What is dis place?'

Belladonna Boudreaux stared at the large tube like incubators, glass shattered and lights out, which lined the corridor the X-men now traversed.

'Some kind of artificial gestation chamber would be my guess.' Cyclops admitted, 'Cloning tanks perhaps.'

Belle stared at him for a long moment. There was nothing obvious from her expression to suggest distaste but her eyes lingered on the individual pods warily.

Wolverine and Psylocke were in the lead of the group, scouting out the t-junction up ahead. Rogue and Ororo followed after with Cyclops, Phoenix, Warren, and Belladonna coming next and Polaris, Havok, and Bishop bringing up the rear.

They had reached the chamber by blasting a hole in the roof from above ground. The long rectangular room was lined on either side with gestation pods, some of which were still rigged up to a power source and glowed with an eerie pale blue light. A pulsing, headache inducing diffuse red light cast an ugly pale over the contours of the room from the ceiling. The scent of dust, mildew and long abandonment settled on the tongue like rust and acid.

'I guess this is where Sinny hatched his daughters.' Warren mused quietly.

Cyclops nodded not wanting to think on it too hard, 'Probably artificially increased the rate of maturation too.'

Phoenix paused a moment staring between two of the pods. Quick as a wink she darted between them and moved to the back of the room to a small trestle table hidden in deep shadow. Cyclops signalled for the X-men to halt and waited for Jean to return.

Presently she did holding a dog-eared and yellowed flip-pad in her hands. 'Look at this.' She held the pad up. There was faded crayon text scrawled across them.

_tHey aRE aLL dEAD. MoTHEr dID nOThinG. FAthER wILL MaKE GLorIa mINd tHE GaRdEN. MuST EsCAPE. gLOrIA wILL hAVE a pRETTy dREam ToNiGHT. _

The text was wreathed in childish drawings rendered in brightly coloured, but faded, crayon. Pink and yellow were prevalent and stick figures danced with awkwardly rendered bunny-rabbits across a mound of smiley faces.

'There's more written here,' Phoenix rifled through the pages of the pad, 'I think Gambit's mother must have written this.' She looked up at Cyclops, 'The Dark Beast said she was mute, after all – and her sister's name was Gloria.'

Belladonna's hand shot out and grabbed the pad. She flipped through the pages, 'Remy ain't got a mama.'

Rogue snorted, 'Shows what ya know.' She seemed pleased to know something Belle didn't, 'His mama was created by Sinister but she got away from him and had Remy in secret.' The smile left Rogue's face, 'Poor gal got killed the day he was born.'

Belle's gaze was very steady, 'What was her name?'

'Rebecca.'

Belle did not react and that in itself was telling. She silently handed the pad back to Phoenix and moved towards the exit to the chamber an abstracted frown on her face. Phoenix believed implicitly that it was wrong to psychically pry but there was something in Belladonna's mind that confused her. The woman was thinking about a tomb in a backwoods cemetery and a secret Jean-Luc LeBeau had always kept from his family. Jean frowned as she watched the other woman stalk away but did not ask the questions on her lips. It was not her place.

Psylocke was waiting for them all in the generic white walled corridor they stepped into, 'We need to keep going down.' She nodded further along the corridor to the place where Wolverine crouched low, sniffing the floor.

'Alright,' Cyclops agreed once Wolverine had straightened up and nodded to confirm it was safe.

Psylocke glanced keenly at Phoenix, 'Can you hear it?'

Phoenix didn't pretend not to understand, 'Yes. I can hear it.'

'Hear what?' Warren asked coming to stand beside Psylocke.

'The walls are talking.' She said simply pressing her hand to one of the smooth white walls.

Warren blinked but asked the pertinent question, 'What are they saying?'

Jean and Betsy exchanged a long look before Jean conceded to Betsy. Psylocke's violet eyes were calm and clear and unreadable.

'To be or not to be: that is the question.' She answered obliquely.

* * *

**Central Core**

A whirring noise throughout the chamber indicated that the Garden had recovered from the feedback shock of LeBeau's psycho-physical trauma. The data cords were glowing dark red and pulsing white; Essex could feel the power building.

Nathaniel's mind raced; he must discover what had gone wrong with his plan in order to salvage it.

_Initiate Alpha-Omega Nine………initiate……..destruction…._

The Garden powered the clone incubation units – and it was the Garden that had summoned the Marauders here under LeBeau's command. The Garden controlled and maintained all Essex's systems from the cloning banks to his archive of genetic information. The Garden had been re-programmed by Essex himself to recognise LeBeau's brain patterns as a part of its core programming; he had anticipated easily taming the thief once he had extracted him from the X-men.

He had never considered the possibility that the only thing that had kept, he, Nathaniel Essex, safe from the thief had been the X-men and their teachings. He had never considered that LeBeau could be quite so dangerous without a master to guide him.

Nathaniel Essex had engendered a Serpent to mind his Eden. He had never imagined that the serpent would turn on him. He had never envisioned a day that the garden would no longer bow to his command.

'No,' Nathaniel Essex was not capable of feeling fear, but if he had been, he would have been afraid indeed at that moment. 'This insubordination will not be tolerated.'

He would not be beaten by his own creation; his own flesh and blood.

Scalphunter snorted, 'The king is dead – long live the king. You wanted an heir, Essex, you got one. Usurpation is the name of the game.' He shot again. Essex absorbed the shot easily but it mattered not.

He had already lost the battle.

The Garden opened fire upon him.

* * *

**Perchance to dream: the undiscovered country**

'It not be time for you to rest yet, chile,' His tante curled his hand in her wrinkled palm just like she had when he was a child.

'Dere be work only you can do; de angels have work for you an' you alone. Break de heart o' de Devil an' bring his secrets to de light chile. Dis be what you were born to do.'

Remy turned his head away sharply, scratching in agitated fashion at his cheek. He thought he'd heard Warren and Betsy talking for a second, and he damn well knew those two weren't welcome in _this _garden. He frowned when he couldn't hear or see any sign of them as he scanned the far corners of his most secret retreat. He sighed after a moment and let his thoughts drift.

'_To be or not to be: that is the question…….'_

He stared sightlessly out at the dream-scape garden deep in the hidden realms of his soul. He watched Stormy, the woman in her flowing gown of gold, and the quick eyed little girl with her head scarf, walk hand in hand across the gleaming lawns. As one they turned to smile at him as they passed. Remy lowered his eyes, pain and panic hammering through his body.

'But it hurts; it hurts so damn bad.' He whispered wretchedly.

The sky over the garden in Remy's soul reverberated with a gathering tempest; the black and purple bruised clouds were edged with gilt golden light. Lightning flashed deep within the clouds. The rain was warm and sweet across his skin.

He wondered why he was still here; he knew he wasn't dead. He just wished he could remember what he was supposed to be doing. He had a feeling it was something important.

'_The fair Ophelia - nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered.' _

'What de hell is an "orison"?' he wondered out loud as he turned from the rain to find himself face to face with a goddess and a child.

Stormy and her younger self stood side by side in the rain watching him. The Goddess and the child, custodians of all the goodness in his soul, both frowned at him.

'Make the garden grow.' The younger Stormy said, tugging her beautiful patterned scarf up over her head and frowning at him. 'The soil is parched and the music is old. I'm bored with the same old same old and you promised that you'd bring us new joy to fill the garden.'

Remy winced, he had noticed that the garden was looking a little ragged around the edges and the brass band stand was vacant. 'Dere ain't been much to be joyful about lately padnat.'

'……_.slings and arrows of outrageous fortune……..perchance to dream………'_

'Joy is where you make it Remy.' The Goddess told him sternly, lightning and thunder in her luminous eyes. 'These excuses do not please us.'

Remy winced again, a shiver of worry sliding through him. The Goddess had a nasty temper and she was very protective of this garden. 'What do you want of me?' he asked.

'Make the garden grow.' The Goddess repeated the words of the child. Remy sighed and closed his eyes. Trust his Stormy to ask of him the one thing he didn't think he could do.

'I'm tired Stormy.'

'_To die to sleep….perchance to dream…….it is a consummation devoutly to be wished…….'_

Lightning crackled through the garden; he smelled burning.

'There is no growth in death!' The Goddess bellowed and her voice was the crack of thunder and the howl of the wind that rattled through the arboretum. The rain ruined table cloth on the trestle table flapped and billowed as Tante's feast spilled across the mud.

'But dere be peace,' he whispered.

'………_There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life.' _

His little padnat Stormy stepped forward and forced him to look into her eyes as she gazed up at him dolefully. 'You made us a promise; where there was dark and hurt you would plant the seeds of joy. You promised this to us; you promised to never stop feeding the garden.'

Remy bowed his head and closed his eyes, 'Oui,' he conceded, 'I made dat promise.'

'……_..whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer……'_

One of the alligators, eight feet long and almost elegantly alien in appearance, all tan scales and striated golden eyes, waddled towards him. Each one of the ridged scales on its back was emblazoned with a red 'X'. The alligator stepped on his feet as it carried on towards the shade of a rhododendron bush. Remy stared after it for a moment in mute confusion.

'Oh dis is gettin' weird.'

He turned from the Stormy duo and in so doing he spied the Viking helmet wearing Wolverine. The diminutive Canucklehead strolled past him with an absent nod of the head and entered into a good natured wrestling match with the X-alligator over a can of Bud. Remy wondered about the relative health of his subconscious mind.

'_Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprise of great pitch and moment with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action.'_

He glanced around at the cloud shadowed and wind tossed garden and then back to the Goddess who stood guard over all his good intentions.

'Mon dieu I need to get out o' dis freak show.'

* * *

**Central Core**

The once implacable, indomitable, Nathaniel Essex continued to give ground under the barrage of laser fire riddling his body with beams of concentrated burning light.

He backed away from the defunct control panel as the remaining gun turrets set high in the walls around the chamber all turned to target him; he blasted a segment of wall to dust destroying a large swathe of his own demesne.

Amanda's glowing yellow eyes were vacant and dead, high above him, yet despite this it almost seemed as if she saw him. If Nathaniel Essex had been any other sort of mind than he was he would have said that her atrophied face seemed to shift in a flaking ripple and her dead sneer became a sneer of bitter triumph.

Nathaniel Essex stared into the dead, but not dead, face of the woman he had used for over a hundred years - a woman he had destroyed a hundred times in that many years. He was not a superstitious man; he believed in nothing but his own will and intellect, nevertheless, in that moment Nathaniel Essex saw a vision of what was to come. He saw his fate; he saw his doom.

Around the room a command was issued through every cable and data filament; it shivered and writhed in glowing lines of intent gaining volume and impetus as it spread throughout this vast labyrinthine facility. The command had Amanda's voice.

'Garden initiating defence mechanism Alpha-Omega Nine; target Essex: Nathaniel. Garden command input: destroy Essex: Nathaniel.'

'This cannot be….' Nathaniel Essex had forgotten what fear tasted like until this moment. Three dozen laser tracking eyes honed in on him from various points around the chamber.

Scalphunter laughed; a bark of defiance. 'Told you the kid was better'n Summers; told you he'd see you dead before he'd work for you again.'

The shotgun blasted and the remaining gun turrets opened fire. Nathaniel Essex could only stare in naked shock as laser fire ripped through his body from three dozen points around the chamber; he could not believe he had been beaten - and so easily.

* * *

**Central Core**

Arclight gave up trying to clear the Cajun's face of blood; a deluge of the stuff fell like a liquid sheet from the deep roughly diamond shaped divot Sinister had gouged into the thief's forehead. The Cajun-cutie would scar, without question, but she didn't think the injury was life threatening.

She smacked him very lightly across the chops but his head just lolled loosely on the stem of his neck. He was breathing, but out cold. Behind her back Sinister roared as another volley of laser beams pounded into him. Scalphunter ducked around the barrage and dropped to his knees beside her.

'How's the kid?'

'Out of it,' Arclight snapped irritated by the pointless question. She reached up to tug on the Cajun's left arm, pulled up above his head and lassoed in neon glowing cords. When she touched the cords they burned her.

'Shit, what are these things?'

'Look like data cables but they don't act like 'em.' Scalphunter withdrew a black and chrome hip flask from an inside pocket of his duster. He upended the flask over the thief's head, washing a lot of the blood away.

'That isn't water,' Arclight frowned as the scent of liquor mingled with the outhouse reek of blood.

'Rum,' Scalphunter confirmed, 'Kid'll probably like it better.'

'Yeah,' Arclight agreed half-heartedly.

The liquid was doing the job even if it wasn't water. Some of the blood washed away from the thief's face and they both managed to get a real good look of the deep, diamond shaped divot gouged into Remy's forehead; she saw bone before it welled with crimson blood once more. Arclight could see that the thief's eyes were both bruised black like a raccoon. She snickered, 'Oh yeah, Cajun's gonna be pissed when he wakes up.'

Scalphunter just snorted derisively and lightly slapped at Remy's checks, 'Kid? Remy – answer me kid.'

The Cajun's head lolled from side to side as Scalphunter slapped him and his eyelids, eyelashes welded together by blood, jumped and twitched. Beyond that he gave no indication of awareness. He was alive – but that didn't mean a whole hell of a lot.

'Shit,' Arclight whispered harshly, 'D'you think Sinister fried his brains completely?'

She glanced involuntarily back at Sinister who was trading blows with the shrivelled up bitch hanging from the ceiling. Laser turrets blew up around the room.

'Shit, shit, shit,' Arclight repeated muscles tensing, 'We need to get the fuck out of here - _now_.' Sinister wouldn't be distracted for long. She couldn't believe she'd thought for a moment that anyone could get one over on Sinister

Arclight narrowed her eyes, looking back at the senseless thief almost thoughtfully. He had said sorry; the Cajun-cutie had _apologised_ to _her_. That was why she was here now, because he'd said "I'm sorry Phillippa."

Arclight could not remember anyone ever apologising to her for anything.

Not her father, who had always been pissed she'd been born a girl and not a boy. Not her brothers who didn't see her being a girl as any reason not to beat the shit out of her whenever they liked. Uncle Sam hadn't apologised to her after Vietnam; they hadn't apologised for the nightmares, the jungle shadows, the screams and the roar of napalm in the night. Uncle Sam hadn't apologised for using the mutie woman in his black-ops missions and then dropping the freak without so much as a fucking "thank you" when Mr President slashed the funding for the project.

Sometimes evil wasn't a choice; sometimes you just woke up one morning and found out there was no way back. No one had ever asked Phillippa if she wanted to be a villain; no one had really given a fuck one way or the other.

The Cajun had cared today though; even if it was for selfish reasons.

The thief had said sorry. It shouldn't have made a difference, but it did. It made all the difference in the world.

Arclight grinned and shoved Scalphunter out of the way. She leaned down towards the Cajun. It was time the Marauders' would-be saviour woke up.

'Wakey-wakey, sleeping beauty,' She cooed cruelly and closed her large fist around the thief's groin before squeezing and twisting – _hard_.

* * *

**The Rose Garden**

'Bright Lady have mercy,' Storm couldn't help the exclamation as she and the rest of the X-men found themselves in a cavernous subterranean chamber filled with will-o-the-wisp lights and heady bloomy roses. The air was still and stale under the sickeningly sweet aroma of the flowers.

The chamber was dominated by a wavering tower, spindly and black as midnight against the fey-light winking eyes of the coloured cables twinned around the structure from top to bottom. The construct looked like a skeletal cross between the Eiffel tower and a massive electricity pylon.

'What is this place?' Rogue asked in awe.

Bishop sucked in a sharp breath of emotion when he looked around the chamber.

'This is……' he swallowed, 'I have been here before; this is the Witness' Garden.' He stared at the spindly tower wreathed in huge, sinuous cables, 'It is not as I remember it, but I am certain this is the chamber Shard and I were taken to.'

Cyclops looked at him sharply, 'Then we're getting close?' he looked to Bishop when he spoke but it was the telepaths who answered.

'Yes.' Psylocke and Phoenix said in unison.

'You can sense Remy?' Storm asked keenly.

Phoenix shook her head, 'Not exactly; we can sense the power in this place – and Gambit is at the centre of it. We have to get to the Central Core right now!'

She turned looking around her for some way out. The X-men fanned out to look for an exit. It was then that the Garden decided to object to their presence.

'There should be a large steel door, marked with the name of the Black Womb Project.' Bishop began.

Wolverine was the first to know something was wrong. He growled instantly growing still. He thought he heard something; almost like laughter or the scrambling of something sharp and pointed scraping over cold metal and stone. His claws 'snikt-ed' out to full extension and he scented the air; all he could smell were the roses and the scent of metal, dust, and thin soil on the air. He was standing in the rose beds. He had time realise his mistake a split second before the rose bushes crackled into life.

'What the….'

The rose bushes shifted; speared vines barbed with inch long thorns pulled Wolverine's feet out from under him without warning. He fell hard; the rest of the team spun around caught off-guard by the surprise attack.

The rose bushes erupted into life and the noise was incredible; worse perhaps than the deep bite of the roses' thorns.

* * *

**Central Core**

'Ow!'

Remy's eyes flew open and a yelp of very masculine pain burst forth from his lips. He curled in on himself and tried to bring his knees up to protect the family jewels. Arclight let go and retreated from him with a smirk.

'Thought that would get your attention cutie,' She winked at him.

Remy blinked his eyes open and took in his surroundings. He saw Sinister tearing into his own chamber apart as defence mechanism Alpha whatever blasted away at him. Remy smiled contentedly. Then he noticed that he could taste blood and rum on his lips, which was a bit odd.

His left arm was also wrenched up at a decidedly uncomfortable angle twinned in the smaller data cables; he could feel the tiny filaments creeping under the layers of flesh and muscle in his arm like maggots. He could feel the Garden's tendrils tickling at his brain. When he closed his eyes he saw algorithms and computer code. Under the circumstances that was good – it meant he was winning – but it was creepy as all get out all the same.

His right arm hung brokenly from his dislocated shoulder; he thought that it would probably hurt more if it wasn't for the shock and adrenaline coursing through his body - and the fact that he was being eaten alive by a gigantic, sentient genetic archive – that was probably a factor too.

Still first things first…….

'Do I taste rum?'

He croaked before tugging experimentally at his bound wrist. He had a feeling he'd need to be at least partially mobile soon. The last of the laser turrets exploded in a rain of sparks. Remy flexed the fingers of his left hand. He closed his eyes and concentrated as the filaments creeping under the flesh of his hands tugged in closer around the tendons and nerves of his fingers.

The Garden asked him a question; he answered it. The Garden repeated the question and he once again repeated the command - a little more forcibly.

Sinister spun around to face him, seemingly able to sense that he was now awake. The homme's body looked like a colander poked through with steaming holes and his cape tassels torn and ripped. Essex's red eyes were narrowed to thin slits and his lips drawn back from his razor teeth. Remy had never seen the homme look so ravaged. He'd honestly never thought he'd live to see the day. He grinned with savage triumph.

He knew he'd won, but he'd figured Essex would kill him before he had the chance to get in any quality gloating. Eh, looked like his luck was in this time. Sinister would kill him for this, but if he got to spit in the homme's eye as he went, it would be worth it.

He nodded to the man who had tainted his entire life and caused more pain than he could have ever imagined. 'Monsieur Essex.'

Sinister, hunched and cornered like a feral dog, stared at him.

'LeBeau,' it was more than a snarl; it was a curse.

Remy smiled and reached out to the cords crawling down the ceiling towards him like spiderwebs. He used them to pull himself to his feet. The Garden whispered subliminal encouragement as he swayed on his feet and moved towards Sinister. The cords and cables tangled around his body like the tails of his own tasselled cape.

The Garden was with him; he knew that his command had already been initiated. Briefly he tried to imagine monsieur Bete's face when the data transfer began. He hoped that all this would be worth a damn; he hoped that what he did here now would go someway to repaying his debts in blood.

He walked forward to stand before Nathaniel Essex. He stared down into the flaccidly pale features of the monster who had destroyed him once before and had tried to do so again. He stared into those cold burning eyes and felt nothing; no fear and no hatred. Sinister was nothing to him now. He smiled as he realised that live or die, he was forever free of Essex once and for all.

To be or not to be: he'd freed himself from the Devil's shadow. The rest was just icing for the cake. No, not just that. It was more.

It was justice.

'Reap what you sow monsieur,' Remy purred as the Central Core reverberated with a sudden influx of power drawn directly from his own body. The Garden shuddered.

_Initiating data transfer……..Genetic archive memory banks……..transferring……_

* * *

**The Rose Garden**

'Oh Mah lord,' Rogue took to the air a foot off the ground as a tendril of thorned veils swept out like a lash from a whip trying to ensnare her. Within seconds the entire chamber was filled with the dry, scraping rustling noise of the rose bushes.

The heads of the roses opened, petals unfurling almost poetically beautifully only to spit acidic resin into the X-men's faces. Wolverine, punctuated and lacerated a thousand times over, flashed out his claws and decapitated a swathe of the blood thirsty vines. It made little odds, however, as more of the sharp, biting thorned vines took the place of the fallen and in seconds Wolverine was half-buried under the rolling advance of the horticultural defence mechanism. Seconds after that the X-men waded into the centre of the rose beds; Wolverine, meanwhile, was bleeding from almost every square inch of his body. His blood saturated the parched soil merely strengthening the mutated roses.

'Jesus Christ,' Warren hissed beating at the vines with his wings and sending blood red petals spiralling into the still, dead air. The vines lurched and lunged at him like pricking fingers; thorns beat at the delicate white pillions of his under feathers. Soon white angel feathers fluttered to the ground mingling with the fallen petals.

Cyclops blasted a path through the beds to reach Wolverine and Jean uncoiled the tendrils with her telekinesis. Storm battered the bushes with gale force winds, causing a hail of petals to fly in all directions.

The howl of the winds in this deep, dark place and the guttural growls emitted from Wolverine's punctured throat combined with the thunderous teeth-grindingly awful scraping of the vines and the rose buds to create a cacophony as maddening as it was frightening.

* * *

**Central Core**

'Reap what you sow, monsieur.'

The figure prowling towards Essex glowed with his own power as a twisting nimbus of serpent like tendrils and cables twinned and laced around his left arm and upper torso; the young man in his tattered trench coat, his limping gait, and his blood drenched face, carried himself like a king ascending his throne.

Nathaniel Essex fell to his knees. He could not believe that he had been beaten by his own creation; he could not believe that everything had gone precisely to plan - and that his own success would now be the death of him. He stared into a pair of blood framed garnet eyes.

'What de matter homme, not'ing to say?' The chaos bringer queried silkily. The teeth that flashed behind the mask of blood were startling white. The black eyes smouldered.

'Isn't dis ev'ryt'ing you wanted?' the mutant squatted down before Nathaniel, 'You created me to be your greatest weapon; your greatest achievement.' He smiled again tongue flicking out to lick at the blood drying to a flaking paste around his mouth.

'So tell me, m'sieur, now dat I'm here,' the red eyes glittered and the mutant grasped Nathaniel's chin in his bloody, cable torn hand, 'do you feel proud?'

* * *

**The Rose Garden**

Cyclops concussive blasts obliterated the thick seven foot high wall of vines that had formed like an encroaching wave. Phoenix wrenched the bloody mess that was Wolverine out of the thicket of bloody roses with sheer brute force of will. Havok and Polaris held back watching the rest of the chamber for any other booby traps and Bishop stood with Belladonna trying to unobtrustively protect the woman who did not need protecting. Storm's winds uprooted whole bushels of roses from the black soil and tossed them like tumble weeds across the chamber. Rogue tore the bushes out with her gloved hands; the thorns pierced her clothing but not her flesh.

In short order there was not much left of the rose beds but bare twigs and mounds of crushed petals. The X-men stood panting in the chamber as Storm's winds died down.

'Well that was unexpected.' Havok murmured in the silence that followed. Belladonna snickered.

'Mebbe I take me a cuttin' of dose roses; dey could prove useful in my garden back home.'

Phoenix dropped down beside Wolverine while Psylocke examined Warren for cuts and bruises.

'Logan?'

The half-feral Canadian snarled and sat up, brushing off Jean's hands and shaking himself like a large dog.

He growled, 'Shoulda known better,' he muttered darkly, more angry with himself than hurt. Already the perforations dotting his flesh had begun to close and the burns and blisters caused by the rose venom healed as the X-men watched to nothing more than sore red patches over the Canuck's craggy features.

Cyclops waited until Wolverine had clambered gingerly to his feet and then looked around him at the chamber; aside from the butchered rose garden it looked very much the same as it had when they arrived.

'Alright people let's keep looking for an exit – but let's be extra careful.' He looked at each X-man in turn, 'This is Sinister's playground; there is no telling what we might run into here.'

Almost on cue the ambient light in the chamber coming from the various huge sinuous cables and cords hanging from the tower and the garlanding the walls, changed from fox-fire orange-gold to a far harsher and less forgiving blazing white light.

'What now?' Rogue asked in exasperation at the same time that a mechanised feminine voice seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere in the chamber.

_Initiate data transfer authorisation Central Core: initiate transfer data archive memory. Destination designation: Muir Isle Research Centre. Destination designation: Cerebro. _

Polaris laughed and impulsively tugged on Havok's arm, 'He's done it! God, he's actually done it!' Lorna's green eyes were luminous, 'He's stealing all Sinister's secrets.'

* * *

_A/N: Hello everyone I have butchered one of Shakespeare's most famous creations for a bit of dramatic impetus (and because the idea of Gambit as Hamlet amuses me) below, for anyone interested, is the complete 'to be or not to be' speech. _

To be, or not to be--that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--

No more--and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--

To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprise of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action. -- Soft you now,

The fair Ophelia! -- Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remembered.


	37. Chapter 37

**Chapter Thirty-Six: Redemption **

**The Xavier Institute for Higher Learning**

'_Unauthorised Data transfer in operation. Unauthorised data transfer in operation. Unable to block transmission; unknown source…….'_

Robert Drake knew something big was happening when his best friend, the ever jovial bouncing blue Beast, Hank McCoy, started to cry.

Weird numbers, binary code, images of double helix and the names of people Bobby had never heard of streamed across every monitor screen in the War Room, the medlab, Hank's lab, and just about anywhere in the mansion with a terminal connected to Cerebro and the computer systems.

Hank McCoy stood in the centre of his lab watching the screens without blinking. His shaking paws clutched a notepad but he had long since stopped trying to keep up with the deluge of information pouring forth. Bobby didn't think Hank even noticed when the pencil snapped in his hand. Large tears plopped from his wide blue eyes and soaked into the thick fur of his cheeks.

'Hank-ster…..hey, Hank, you okay buddy?' Tentatively Bobby reached out to touch a hand to his friend's lab-coat covered shoulder. Bobby could count on one hand the number of times he had seen Hank cry. It scared Bobby to the depths of his soul.

Hank's breath caught in a shuddering inhale as he reacted belatedly to Bobby's presence. He nodded his large head but did not speak. Threnody, wearing a modified Genoshan slave collar to suppress her powers but allow her to move around, stood on the other side of Hank and watched the strange data scroll down the screen intently.

'This is…….this is Sinister's data….?'

'What?' Bobby stared at her before turning swiftly to his friend, 'Shit, Hank what do we do? Do you think this is some sort of techno attack? A virus or something?'

Hank slowly turned to stare at Bobby and the look in his blue eyes scared his friend to the marrow of his bones. 'No Bobby,' he said without his usual verbosity, 'I don't think this is an attack.'

'What is it then?' Names and numbers continued to pour down the screens throughout the room and Cerebro, receiving no prompts or commands either way, had given up trying to block the signal and was simply absorbed in processing and saving the data as it streamed in.

Hank McCoy raised his thick furred hand to his right eye and almost daintily brushed the tears from his cheek. His eyes remained glued to the flow of data. 'Salvation,' he murmured almost too low for Bobby to hear, even standing right next to his friend, 'I think this is a miracle.'

* * *

**The Garden: Central Core**

'So tell me, m'sieur, now dat I'm here: do you feel proud?'

Remy knew as soon as the words left his mouth that he'd pushed his luck too damn far. Still the knowledge didn't help him one little bit. Essex's eyes lit with a cold blood and fire ferocity and the diamond on his forehead pulsed.

'I will destroy you!'

Pain like a thousand burning needles smashed into Remy's back as Essex grabbed him around the throat and body slammed him onto the floor. His dislocated shoulder screamed, nerve endings sending so many panicked messages of pain to his brain that Remy thought that he surely ought to pass out now.

He didn't. Instead he clawed weakly with his one good hand at Sinister's arm as the red eyed devil tried to crush his throat. He stared up at the man, choking and suffocating and shaking with pain. He couldn't speak, couldn't formulate a sound, but he managed to make his lips shape the words he could not say:

_No you won't._

Needle teeth sheared away from bloodless lips and Essex looked more like a rabid dog than the cold, calculated, but almost elegant monster Remy had become uncomfortably familiar with. His vision began to black out, dancing yellow spots eating away at his sight. It was almost a relief that it was all finally over.

A loud bang, like the sonic boom of a jet plane, ripped through the air and suddenly Essex was no longer choking the life out of him at all. Instead Remy was flopping across the broken, laser pitted, steel floor of the walkway like a dead fish. He still couldn't breathe and he tasted blood; vaguely he wondered if he was going to drown in his own bodily fluids.

He hoped not; that sounded tres, tres inelegant.

Remy found himself blinking at the steel plated floor from less than an inch away; he decided that the coolness of the metal against his over-sensitised flesh was quite pleasant. He wondered if it was possible to will himself into unconsciousness.

Scalphunter grabbed hold of him under the arms and pulled him away from the edge of the walkway as Arclight smashed her fists together and the air of the chamber reverberated with the deep, subliminal roaring boom of her powers.

Remy whimpered. Scalphunter was being as gentle as the mercenary knew how and still every point of contact hurt like a sonofabitch. The Garden whispered to him; he thought back at it. They only had to hold on a little while longer.

Sinister, stripped of all the conceits of civility, roared with unadulterated fury as his prey was dragged away from him.

'You will pay for this LeBeau.'

Essex pounded Arclight with a full force energy blast. The Marauder managed to dive out of the way of the blast, but Sinister was fast. He seemed to move like water running down hill; oozing over the walkway. He kicked the downed Arclight in the chest and even from feet away, the blood thundering in his ears, Remy could hear the multiple cracks of breaking ribs.

He closed his eyes and winced in sympathy. It would be bad if Phillippa died now; especially as she'd stuck her neck out for him. Sinister kicked her again. Remy wondered dazedly what he should do about that. He had the feeling he was losing time, everything seemed to be happening in disjointed segments poorly merged together; sort of like bad stop motion photography.

Arclight bounced bonelessly across the walkway. Scalphunter swore and Remy lifted his head, blinked away the dancing dots trying to blind him; he concentrated on Sinister. The homme's right arm exploded; popping like rotted fruit, the thin layer of flesh shredding and the semi-liquid viscera within bursting forth in a thick, gloopy grey mess.

Something in the back of Remy's head went 'ping' like old elastic; a liquid wave of heat rushed through the back of his skull. He felt sick and dizzy and the lights of the Central Core flickered violently.

'Dat can' be good.' Remy whispered softly.

Sinister didn't even slow down in the wake of Remy's attack. He simply dissolved into a mass of oozing, fast moving sludge that swept over the steel of the walkway towards them. It was like a grey, rolling oil slick. There was nothing remotely 'human' left of Nathaniel Essex.

He knew it wouldn't do any good but he felt he ought to do something in the name of self-preservation. He blew a messy hole in the centre of Sinister's body mass, what was once his chest. The hole sealed closed like melted candle wax.

Sinister kept on rolling on even as bits of him splattered the walls and floor.

Remy managed to shake himself out of Scalphunter's grip. He struggled forward on his knees, using his one good hand, invaded by filaments glowing like mother-of –pearl, to drag himself upright. Scalphunter tried to grab him and Remy allowed his charge to envelope his body, creating a stinging, burning shield around him.

He tried to speak but all he could manage was a thick, bloody croak, 'GO!'

Scalphunter read the intent in Remy's eyes. His own blank dark eyes widened, 'Shit kid you're insane.'

Remy managed to find the wherewithal to roll his eyes, 'Pot, kettle, homme.' He croaked before turning his back on Scalphunter. He'd just have to hope Grey Crow had more sense and self-preservation than Remy himself.

Remy allowed his powers to flare up some more and every data cord and low hanging tendril in the chamber glowed white hot in sympathy. Scalphunter backed up as the press of that static burning power prickled against the air, making it hard to breathe.

The Sinister tsunami rolled right over Arclight, passing her and leaving her lying on the walkway unconscious but breathing. Essex never wasted time on the inferior; he had but one target in mind and one alone.

The quicksilver grey wave smashed down over Remy.

* * *

**The Rose Garden**

'Dammit why won't ya open?' Rogue continued to pound on the huge metal doors proclaiming in thick black lettering: Black Womb Project. Her words punctuated by either a pounding fist or a shoulder slam against the door. Every time she threw herself into the door a wave of familiar luridly bright pinkish-white energy shimmered over the pitted metal. The energy grew stronger the more kinetic force she threw at it and as it did it became harder to make any impact at all.

A nasty little self-defeating cycle - kinda like her whole relationship with Remy so far.

Rogue sagged against the door. Behind her Cyclops was talking to an excitable Bobby over the comm. link the conversation not helped by a bad reception. Jean and Psylocke were trying to figure out what the hell this room was made of and why it felt like a real mind. The rest of the X-men were trying to figure out how to get out of his damn place.

Rogue just wanted to find Remy.

A hand on her shoulder had her twisting round, fist cocked and ready. She managed to stop herself before she punched a hole right through Bishop's diaphragm but it was a close call.

'Bishop!' a surge of rattled anger ran through her, 'Ya should know better than ta sneak up on a gal,' she shook her head and rolled her shoulders trying to push away the tension making her eyeballs ache, 'Ah coulda killed ya.'

Bishop simply looked down at her dispassionately from his considerable height then moved to stand before the door. 'I was merely going to suggest that I try to absorb some of the excess energy for you. It might make breaking down the door easier.' He placed both his palms against the glowing door.

Rogue sucked in a breath of surprise, 'Ah……' she sighed, 'Thanks sugar, ah shoulda thought o' that.' Her tone was apologetic and Bishop glanced over his shoulder and nodded to her in acknowledgement of both her words and her unspoken sentiment.

Rogue scraped her sweaty curls from her forehead and deliberately turned away from the door hoping for a distraction while Bishop worked his magic. She listened in to the conversation between Cyclops and Bobby.

'……..I'm telling you Slim…..Hank's bawling his eyes out. I can't make him make any sense. All he keeps talking about is chromosome this and chromosome that, X-factor this, X-factor that. Moira MacTaggart's on the other communication line yelling at Sam about the most complete study of the human and mutant genetic code in existence. When I left the room she was laughing hysterically and crying about the possibilities to find new treatments for stuff like Alzheimers, Cystic Fibrosis, and a bunch of stuff I've never even heard of.'

Cyclops was frowing so deeply his eyebrows threatened to descend below the line of his visor, 'And you're saying the transmission started in the last twenty minutes?'

'Yeah, I can't trace the source back because Cerebro's maxing out just trying to contain on this new stuff. I think Hank would gut me if I disrupted the data flow before it's done. Threnody recognises some of the codes and encryption; she says it's Sinister's _whole fucking database_.'

Cyclops didn't say anything. None of the X-men in the Garden said one word. Storm turned away from Cyclops and walked as far from the rest of the X-men as she could safely go; her arms wrapped protectively around her body and head bowed.

'Cyke……Hey Cyke? Is this stupid thing working?'

'We're here, Iceman,' Cyclops roused himself even though he was struggling to take it all in. 'We haven't found Gambit yet. We need to go deeper into the complex. Keep me informed of any changes.'

'………uh, sure,' there was a pause, '……Gambit's doing this isn't he? He's the one who's sending Sinister's data to Hank and Moira?' the words were posed as a question but it didn't sound like one. Bobby didn't wait for confirmation either.

'Shit,' Bobby's voice was soft over the communication line, 'Guess the guy was on our side all along, huh?' The laugh that rippled over the static-y communication channel was soft and shaky, 'You can take the thief out of the X-men but you can't take the X-man outta the thief, I suppose.'

Storm spun around on her heels as she heard Bobby's final comment. There were tears trailing down her cheeks and her breath caught in her chest. Some complicated, turbulent emotion rippled her cracking composure. Cyclops tapped his comm. badge. The team needed to get moving before they all fell apart at the seams.

'Keep this channel open Iceman; we're going after Gambit.'

* * *

**Central Core**

Sinister reformed some semblance of his solid form as soon as he had hold of Remy. The first thing the enraged geneticist did was re-distribute the mass in his hand, turning his right arm into a swinging anvil and shattering Remy's femur with one blow - crippling him.

Remy opened his mouth on a silent scream; he could not make a sound as his vision drowned in tears and blood, and his throat convulsed around the air he could not easily swallow down into his lungs. He fell backwards until he was lying on the floor. Sinister began to drag him, via his broken leg, across the floor.

The pain was indescribably awful; for a split second he was sure his consciousness disengaged from his body. There are some pains that the mind just cannot process at all. There were a few seconds when the world simply ceased to exist and Remy dawdled in a blinding intermission of pure agony. Then he was back in his brutalised body for the final act. He wasn't sure that was all that much of an improvement.

Whatever anyone wanted to claim about his moral calibre, his emotional fortitude, or his basic intelligence, almost anyone would have to concede that Remy LeBeau was a physically brave man. His pain threshold was high and he could shrug off blows that would knock out cold most other men of his basic build or fitness with a smile and a cocky word.

He used to fight Wolverine and his adamantium skeleton for recreation – he knew how to handle a few hard knocks.

Nevertheless every man had their limit, and Remy was reaching him. He sobbed openly as Sinister smashed him against the wall, somehow managing to lock both his wrists over his head against the concrete and steel (and the searing wave of agony that ran through his dislocated shoulder and broken right arm ripped through him like a burning sabre). He tried not to, he really did, but he felt the acid burn of blood and bile and vomit surge up his throat and out of his mouth as he teetered on the edge of unconsciousness.

The last time he'd ever felt pain like this had been when Sinister tortured him into working for him. He closed his eyes and smacked the back of his head against the metal walls of the chamber; using a pain he could control as a distraction against the agony he could not contain.

He could hear the Garden crying out in his mind, the shockwaves of their shared pain threatening to ruin the whole plan. He didn't dare try any of the normal ways of blocking out pain. He couldn't risk breaking his connection with the Garden before the data transfer was complete. Best case scenario was that torturing him would be enough to distract Sinister completely.

Remy could only hope he lasted long enough to see this job through.

* * *

**The Rose Garden**

'Whoa!'

The only warning Rogue had that danger was imminent was the sharp cold brush of the seventh sense she had absorbed along with the rest of Carol Danvers Ms. Marvel powers, like the touch of death at the nape of her neck. It didn't activate that often, the seventh sense, but when it did Rogue knew better than to ignore it.

Not bothering to shout a warning because it would waste time. Rogue grabbed Bishop around the mid-rift and flew the both of them well out of the way of the huge, seemingly impenetrable, Black Womb doors. She gave a mental alarm call to the team's telepaths knowing that they'd relay it to the rest of the team.

A second later the Black Womb doors blasted apart in a wave of Remy's own, unique, energy. Rogue heard the sounds of explosions elsewhere in the facility both above and beyond the Rose Garden chamber.

'Goddess! - Look out!'

Storm rose on the winds at her command as X-men scattered to the far corners of the chamber. The huge skeletal tower dominating the Rose Garden shuddered and groaned; the data cords wrapped around its foundation struts burned searing white-blue and hissed with power before dissolving in a rain of ionised sparks.

'Everyone – to the far walls,' Cyclops barked out the get clear order to those team members who could not fly.

The sparks trailing down from the heights like falling stars ignited fires as they touched down into the thickets of dead rose bushes. Around the chamber other data cords burst from their moorings and collapsed towards the ground like writhing serpents spewing raw energy and fire. The ground trembled and shuddered. The tower in the garden toppled, its foundations collapsing.

The scream of metal twisting and breaking sounded almost human. The walls and floor of the chamber glowed reddish-pink and showers of thin black soil erupted in gritty geysers from the ground.

Storm tried to use her winds to stop the tower from falling to the ground and onto the X-men who had precious little room to escape. The tower crumpled into pieces almost delicately as it continued to fall. The sound of screaming metal filled the chamber like a physical presence and Polaris caught the pieces in her magnetic grip, pulling them apart into manageable chunks.

'_System failures…….system failures…….pain……..pain………initiate…..initiate…… pain…..so much pain…….'_

The twisted, maligned mechanical voice startled the X-men one and all. It seemed to be coming from the hallway beyond the blasted open Black Womb doors. Acrid black smoke billowed out of the doorway, orange and golden shadows danced dizzily across the blackened, scorched walls. The ticklish crackle of flames could be heard from beyond the doors.

Cyclops drew himself up; he looked from the collapsing rose garden, fast being engulfed in fire, to the corridor beyond the doors. 'Okay people; you know the drill.'

Without a word the X-men fell in behind their leader and walked into the breach beyond the Black Womb doors. Behind their backs the rose garden burned.

* * *

**Central Core**

'I will tear you to pieces and re-make you.' Sinister snarled determinedly trying to pull the veneer of cold control back around himself now he had the thief bound and unable to fight back.

Remy, hanging from the chamber wall was close to hyperventilating as he struggled to deal not just with his own physical pain but the feedback loop between his mind and the Garden. He could feel the flames as they licked over rose beds and the dead plants in the outer chamber far away from here. He could feel the falling data cords, like nails pulled from his fingertips. He grieved more for the Garden's destruction than his own pain. The Garden was screaming as she died and it was his fault.

Whatever purpose the Garden had been created for, and whatever horrors had been perpetrated within these chambers, the loss of something as fantastical as the Garden was nothing less than a tragedy.

'You cannot defeat me. I will rebuild.' Sinister spat. He was incandescent with rage. Remy was just cold and numb. He was passing beyond pain and into the realm of inevitability; death was almost a certainty but it was nothing he needed to worry over.

He could feel the lights going out inside his head and without. It was a quiet form of dying. It was more peace than he probably deserved. Remy had his validation, eve if redemption was pipe-dream. He had proved that he was not Sinister's Cat's-paw; he was a man and a man who paid his debts.

'No,' he said quietly, calmly, and in direct contrast to Sinister's fine heated rage and mania, 'You are finished. You jus' don see it yet.' His eyelids fluttered closed.

Sinister wrenched his chin up, tearing the blood slicked and sticky hair from his blood soaked brow as he did so. The hair came away in one sweep with a loud, sucking sound. It hurt like a wax strip being torn from his flesh.

'What have you done?' there was a quiver of fear in the scientist's eyes.

Remy smiled, 'Give a guess.' He let his eyes slip shut, the fingers of his left hand going into spasm. Little flickers of electric heat rippled through the tendrils twining with the muscles and tendons of his hand.

It was almost over.

* * *

**The Xavier Institute for Higher Learning**

Hank McCoy sat perched on his swivel chair in the centre of his research lab watching a veritable Pandora's Box of secrets and possibilities descend across every monitor he had; it was profoundly eerie and humbling experience.

Then again hope was often thus - especially when one had begun to lose all faith completely.

Hank had given up trying to comprehend the flood of information; he simply sat there and watched. He watched as, in the space of minutes, the pursuit for a cure to the Legacy Virus advanced by years. He watched as data on genetic aberrations and anomalies that modern medicine had barely begun to categorise, let alone treat, spilled forth in a mish-mash of text and numeric data.

Hank McCoy was past weeping. He was past wonder, past awe. Now he simply sat quiet and still and found himself with one question left to be answered in a tidal swell of answers surging in all around him.

Hank found himself trying to quantify the age old question; what price knowledge? Adam and Eve had allegedly been cast from Eden for daring to partake in the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Hank might question the veracity of such events as 'fact' per se, but he understood the basic principle.

No good deed went unpunished and knowledge always came with a price – if only in loss of innocence.

Sinister's Garden was surely a far cry from Paradise yet Hank McCoy did not doubt for a second that the price to be paid for stealing its knowledge would be a heavy one indeed.

He cursed himself a coward to find he was thankful that it would not be he who would pay that price.

Hank McCoy bowed his head; he was not a man for prayer but he liked to think he was a man who paid his dues.

'Thank you Remy.'

* * *

**Central Core**

Remy wasn't sure that Sinister had either noticed or cared particularly, that Scalphunter and Arclight had vanished from the chamber at some point in time. Vaguely Remy wondered where the pair had gone. Eh, it didn't really matter. Wherever they ended up he wished them well.

He was tired of the hating and the fear and the constant burning knot of self-loathing roiling in his gut; it was time to let all that shit go.

'You know somet'ing homme?' Remy lifted his head, already feeling strangely weightless and floaty.

Sinister just stared at him, red eyes cold. Remy made his lips move in a smile.

'You a one trick pony, m'sieur.' He snickered Sinister was doing something to his left hand, something that should hurt but didn't – or maybe he was just passed feeling it.

'What?' the question was forced out from between jagged teeth; sharp and biting. Sinister pushed a needle attached to some sort of sensor into the flesh of his temple. Remy suspected that the homme had finally figured out what he was doing with the Garden and was now trying to stop the data dump.

'T'ain't gon' work,' he told the man mildly, 'You not gon use me ever again – tol' you dat a dozen times, an' I say it again. I am not your chien to call Essex. I _never_ was.'

Another long needle was driven precisely through his opposite temple; a low burning pain in his left hand began to throb. Sinister did not speak. Remy took this as an invitation to fill the void with prattle.

'See I figured somet'ing out,' Remy continued conversationally in a voice that was light and thready with pain and trauma shock, 'One night when I be sittin' up on de mansion roof, t'inkin' 'bout de total fuck up I made o' my life an' tryin' to figure out what evil shit you were gon try an' make me do, I realised somet'ing den.'

Again Sinister said nothing moving away from the wall and trying to find a control console in the battered central core that still functioned. Remy watched him mildly and silently nudged the Garden into initiating self-destruct protocols as soon as the data transfer was complete.

They were dying anyway, might as well go out with a bang, right?

'Hey homme, humour me, oui? I'm all strung up here, least you can do is listen to my self-discovery, non?' he smirked when Sinister turned a look of feral irritation his way, 'We family after all, n'est pas?'

Sinister snarled, top lip peeling back from his teeth; Remy smiled winningly at him. His head felt funny; almost loose and light. There was a shiver of liquid coldness at the nape of his neck – kind of like blood bursting from multiple capillaries and welling at the base of his skull; a slow blooming haemorrhage.

'I discovered dat you a loser, homme.' Remy watched Sinister calmly, still dangling from the walls, 'You got no style, m'sieur, no flexibility. You only got de one idea an', to be honest homme, it ain't a good one.'

Sinister froze on the spot where he had been fussing with a damaged control console trying to coax it back to life. That was his only reaction, but it was enough.

'I mean sure, I got my problems,' Remy continued magnanimously, 'hell my issues got dem issues, but I got _range_ homme. I can do stupid an' cocky, I can do ice-cool professional; I can care about shit beyond my own happiness.' He scoffed and rolled his eyes, 'An' dat ain't even mentionin' my side line in angst; don' nobody angst like dis Cajun boy.' He shook his head and felt things pop and die inside his brain, 'I got angles to play dat make Pythagoras green wit' envy……but what you got homme?'

Again he lacked any meaningful audience participation in response but again he didn't really care. The lights in the central core had dimmed; piece by piece the Garden closed down around them both. Remy found himself fighting against the dying of the light in more ways than one. He thought he heard a clock ticking, dull and heavy, like the chimes of a grandfather clock, but it might just have been the labouring pulse thudding in his ears.

'You havin' trouble wit' de question, m'sieur?'

It was becoming hard to speak; his words were slurring and his vision was fading as gradually as the lights in the Garden. He wasn't sleepy but the big sleep was inching closer.

'Let me help den: you don' got _not'ing_ homme. Not'ing but your envy; you ain't special, you jus' a freak – one o' ole blue lips playt'ings. You ain't even a mutant; you jus' a wannabe.'

Darkness in waves of black tinged green and red shadows washed over his vision and slipped like wet silk over his brain. He took a deep breath; all things considered he was feeling pretty good about the way things had worked out. He would never balance the scales; even if he lived a hundred years and never once crossed the moral line again, he would never be absolved. It couldn't happen; that wasn't how life worked. Hell, he wasn't even sure he wanted to be forgiven.

Most of the Morlocks were dead – someone _should_ suffer for that.

The Morlocks were dead; Remy could be canonised by the damn Pope and it wouldn't make any difference to them. Deep down Remy had always known that, even when he tried to pretend otherwise. He could be forgiven, but the slate would never be wiped clean. Forgiveness wasn't worth all that much in consolation. This, though, this was something. Monsieur Bete would save countless lives and turn the Garden's secrets to good use, and Essex would be rendered impotent; he wouldn't be able to hurt another mutant ever again.

Mais oui, the good Lord could shove his forgiveness and penance where the sun don't shine; Remy would sooner be a sinner that made good than a penitent too scared to live. He would sooner be a scoundrel prepared to do whatever it took to do right than live as an X-man with a yoke of shame and guilt weighing him down.

C'est vrai; if he had to do it over again, he wouldn't do a thing differently. He wasn't sorry, he wasn't ashamed. He was satisfied. He was free and he wasn't afraid anymore.

He forced his eyes open so he could look Essex in the eye one last time; he wanted the homme to see in his eyes that he had no claim on him.

'You can kill me homme, but you won' never own me – an' you ain't wort' it to me to kill you; you _beneath_ me.' Remy smiled. It might have been a trick of the light, or perhaps his failing vision, but it seemed to him that Sinister was smaller, thinner, less imposing than he had been. He really didn't look all that frightening even covered in Remy's own blood and bearing down him with scalpels and needles.

It occurred to him then that Essex truly was something less than a man. He was inferior in everyway; a leech sucking the life from the mutant race. Remy laughed thickly.

'You ain't not'ing but a parasite.' He whispered in sudden realisation. The words rolled free on a slow exhalation as Remy sagged in his restraints, the last of his animation flooding from his limbs. He let his eyes close again.

'I'm ashamed of de fact dat I ever feared you.'

* * *

**Within Black Womb**

'Ahhhhh….'

Phoenix staggered and dropped to her knees. Her arms went around her stomach and she swallowed convulsively as her stomach revolted and clenched in pain. Her eyes teared and her vision blurred. She could barely breathe around the pain like a phantom in her head.

'Jean? Jean, answer me!' Scott's arms around her, holding her upright and cupping her chin gently brought her back to awareness. Impulsively she reached out and threw her arms around his neck, burying her head in his shoulder.

'Oh god Scott; he's in so much pain.'

'Remy?' Rogue was standing less than a foot away. She and Bishop had managed to smash though the huge steel doors and now the X-men were making cautious progress through a narrow glowing triangular corridor. Jean nodded her head wordlessly.

Rogue's expression hardened her eyes glowing with a banked fire, 'Where is he Jean?' the southern woman looked up and down the endless corridor. 'We been traipsing through hallways forevah and we ain't got nowhere!' her words hissed like water in a boiling kettle; the frustration radiating from her mind made Jean wince coming on the heels of the blast of Gambit's pain. She pressed into Scott's arms for a second before standing on her own two feet again.

Psylocke was pale and her face was drawn in lines of stress and tension. The sigil emblazoned upon her face throbbed and glowed. 'He's everywhere and nowhere.' She answered the question for Jean, 'He's thoughts and his sensations are running through the walls just like his power seems to be.' Her lavender eyes grew distracted, 'Somehow this whole place and Gambit's psyche have been merged; there one and the same.'

'Can you locate him physically?' Warren asked keenly looking up and down the strobing corridor; the ebb and flow of power running through the walls had become erratic.

Psylocke shook her head, 'Needle in a haystack,' she said tersely through her teeth, 'He's howling in agony through every square inch of this facility. _He's everywhere_.' She hissed furiously.

The walls shuddered blinding white hot and then dark, brooding reddish-black. It hurt the eyes and the senses to be in this tight, enclosed place. Warren hated it and he could only imagine what it was doing to Storm.

Belladonna Boudreaux pushed forward, her violet eyes were keen and sharp but other than that she did not react over much to the news that her husband was in horrendous pain somewhere or other in this place.

'You sayin' dat de walls be connected to m' husband?' she demanded of both telepaths. After a moment the two psionic X-women nodded cautiously. Belladonna watched them as keenly as a cat watches a bird, 'An' you sayin' dat you can' find him in dis place, oui?'

'Yes.'

'D'accord,' the Cajun assassin cocked her head to the side and gave the two woman and the other assembled X-men a droll look, 'Den mebbe one o' you should _ask de damn walls_ where he be, non? Seein' as dey connected an' ev'ryt'ing.'

Phoenix and Psylocke blinked at the woman in total surprise. Wolverine snorted a laugh and even Rogue managed a faint, wry smile.

'Oh,' Jean said stepping away from the protective presence of her husband and towards the wall, 'That could work.' She admitted and then, very deliberately, placed her hand against the glowing wall of the corridor.

_GAMBIT! We're here; The X-men are here. Tell me where you are. We're here to help!_

* * *

_A/N: Hello everyone – just a quick note to say that this story is going on a very short vacation – which just so happens to be because I am going on a vacation. Don't worry though; I'm hoping to pick up again at the beginning of July. So you won't have to wait long for more. ;) (11__th__ June 2009)_


	38. Chapter 38

**Chapter Thirty-Seven: Conversion**

In a shadowed place a clock was ticking; it was an old, tarnished pocket watch. An aged and worn inscription smoothed into illegibility by the years was just visible on the scratched gold cover. The glass over the clock face was cracked creating a spider web tracery obscuring the sight of the delicate black second hand spinning around and around in eternal countdown.

Nearby slow running water trickled over pieces of broken concrete; an urban waterfall created by a burst water main. Iron bars poked through the broken concrete sidewalk, rusting in the grey leaden air while fallen sky scrappers collapsed into themselves like aged giants one glacial hour at a time. Overhead clouds, sluggish and pollution tainted, congealed into a blanket obscuring the sun. The clock kept ticking throughout it all.

In the midst of this tableau of dystrophic decay an old man sat on the ground, his back propped against one graffiti tagged bullet pitted wall, his old thin legs stretched out before him and his bony shoulders slouched under the insubstantial weight of the grey rags he wore. The old man cut a deck of cards expertly. He rifled through the pack and selected four cards of his choosing.

The ace of spades formed the apex of a triangle laid out over the weed strewn broken ground. The queen of hearts formed the right side base corner of the triangle and the suicide king stood opposite. In the centre sat the Joker, laughing in silence.

The odd formation of playing cards was illuminated by the eldritch light of the floating Momentary Princess; a pale and liquid greenish-blue luminance that seemed almost sickly under the heavy grey sky.

Inside the oval semi-solid mass of the Momentary Princess tiny images flickered to life and out again, phantoms caught in a past that never ended; memories yet to be lived.

The old man shuffled his cards meditatively; his fingers were gnarled and beginning to lose their battle with arthritis but the action of shuffling the deck had proved to be better than any doctor prescribed treatment to keep his digits limber. Briefly the old man tried to remember what it had felt like to be young and in his prime. It proved impossible; he'd been old for more years now than he'd ever been young. The old man smiled; the thought amused him.

The Momentary Princess continued to do what it did best (which just so happened to be the only thing it actually did). It showed him the past, the present, and the future. It showed him lies, more lies and damn lies. The old man understood that that was all the past and the future truly were: lies of perception. That was why he had been able to contain and control the Princess when so many had failed in history.

The old man glanced briefly into the reflective surfaces of the Princess; he saw memories he had almost forgotten in a long and creatively lived life. He wondered vaguely what would change this time from the way he remembered. He wondered what vagaries of fate and time he would be called to witness this day.

The old man chuckled raspily partly in response to his own meandering thoughts and partly because he found life in general funny, 'Mirror, mirror, in de sky - tell me will today be de day I die?'

The pocket watch by his side kept ticking and the old man sighed before turning back to his cards, 'Guess dat's a no den.'

Somewhere close by a flock of crows cawed and cackled over a carcass far too large to be a raccoon or stray dog. The man lifted his head and surveyed his surroundings. Out beyond the harbour, scavenger birds gathered in the empty sockets of Lady Liberty's weeping eyes.

The old man sighed, his eyes too old for weeping, and began to deal out another hand of cards.

Time, time would tell whether fate would finally cut him a break today or not. Time, like the Witness himself, was the ultimate survivor after all. Neither one of them had the God damn sense to quit.

* * *

**The Garden: triangular hallway**

_GAMBIT! We're here - the X-men are here…..Tell me where you are…….we're here to help……_

Ororo Munroe was not the only person to hear the echo of Jean Grey's psychic broadcast, as she well knew, but at that moment, trapped in this angled corridor cast in shadow and crimson flares, she felt profoundly alone.

The feeling was a fallacy, of course, she was not alone. The X-men were here, Havok and Polaris and Remy's estranged wife were here also. That was part of the problem; there were too many people in too tight a space. She felt like she might suffocate.

Ororo Munroe was claustrophobic; this weakness was no secret. Friend and foe knew it well and many an enemy of the X-men had sought to use that weakness against her in times past. Ororo Munroe did not like small, tight, dark places. She did not like to be underground for long stretches of time; she did not like to be away from the elements of nature that were as much a part of her as her flesh and bones.

Still it was not just small, dark underground places that she feared. It was not now only the press of many tonnes of rock between her and the sky that made her chest tight and her breathing shallow. No, such material fears could be easily overcome with the right mentality. The truth was that Ororo Munroe was afraid of being smothered and caged by more than just rock and dirt and the press of man-made steel all around her.

Ororo Munroe could not stand the presence of these other people by her side; her X-men, her family, her tribe. She would gladly die for those men and women here with her now. She had shed blood, tears, and sweat with each of them over the years. She respected and trusted them in a way she had never trusted any before. She loved the X-men and considered more than one of the people clustered in this tiny, blocked off corridor with her a dear and cherished friend.

Yet for all that she would give almost anything at this moment to be free of them all. She wanted to lose herself in the sky and the storm; she wanted to be as far from these friends and loved ones as the winds could take her. She could not bare the thought of these men and women witnessing her fears, her weakness, and her doubts. She felt exposed and raw; her emotions easily read by them all, even Belladonna Boudreaux, who was a stranger to Ororo.

On the streets of Cairo she had learned that she could only trust herself. She had learned to not just bite the hand that fed her, but to suck the very marrow from the bones because another meal might be a long time coming. Out upon the Kenyan savannah Ororo had learnt that her will was supreme; that men would gladly die for her word and her honour. She had learnt what it was to hold the lives of others in the palm of her hand and she had enjoyed that power.

Under the tutelage of Professor Charles Francis Xavier Ororo Munroe had learned shame and humility; she had learned to give of herself for the benefit of others. Amid her friends in the X-men Ororo had learned the value of family - and the cost. To love hurt, to give of oneself was to become hollow, to fight for another man's dream was to sacrifice one's own. To be an X-man was to lose the freedom to simply _be_.

Ororo Munroe had once been a Goddess, now she was a servant. She did not regret the choices she had made, but that did not mean that there were not moments when she hated the outcome. She had liked being a goddess; she did not always like being an X-man. A Goddess did not doubt, did not fear, did not grieve – but an X-man did.

Standing in this strange and unnatural place, the walls shimmering with dying scarlet and sunset pink lights, pulsing bright enough to scar the retina and dark enough to make the blackness of space seem pale, Ororo found her fears, her grief, and her heartache converting to an altogether harder, darker emotion: hatred. She stood here vulnerable and exposed, the eyes of her compatriots filled with furtive sympathy for her difficulties and she found that she hated the man responsible for her predicament.

To feel led to hurt and betrayal; her friend had abandoned and exposed her and she hated him for that. She did not think she could forgive such a betrayal.

'Got him!' Phoenix's voice snapped Storm out of her reverie along with the other assembled X-men. All eyes turned to the red headed woman. There was satisfaction and triumph in her voice, 'He's not conscious, but the connection Gambit has to this place amplifies the signal his brain gives out. It's scrambled but I can use it to track him.'

'Where to Jeannie?' Logan spoke up, 'I caught a thread o' Gumbo's scent, hours old, but he came through here all the same,' the Canadian raised his shaggy brows, 'Sinister too.'

Phoenix nodded, 'We're going the right way. He's at the centre of the complex.' She looked around facing the far reaches of the corridor, 'We need to keep heading along this corridor, but then we're going to have to figure something else out.'

'Why?' Archangel looked towards the end of the dimming corridor to the impressively solid door.

Phoenix pursed her lips, 'Because this whole place is set to go off like Hiroshima if we don't get to Gambit and Sinister soon.'

'What?' Cyclops voice was sharp. He didn't need to say anything more. Phoenix fluttered her hand as she swept a sweaty, dust covered lock of hair from her face.

'I caught a hint of Gambit's intentions; he's going to try and overload this entire place with biokinetic energy as soon as the data transfer completes.' She frowned, 'He's going to blow the place sky high; I don't think he knows we're here. I've got a lock on his mind now but I wasn't able to make contact with him.'

'We must make haste.' Storm spoke up, resolute and firm. She garnered nods of agreement from the gathered X-men but no one realised that her statement was decidedly ambiguous. Haste was indeed needed, but none of the X-men realised that Ororo did not mean that they must hasten to Gambit's aid. Then again, Remy was not the only one who knew how to lie with word and deed. Gambit lied only part of the time, Ororo lied every day of her life.

As Rogue tore the metal doors at the end of the corridor off their hinges Storm wondered if today might be the day she ceased her deception.

* * *

**The Garden: Time's Chamber**

In a dark and cold place a clock ground out seconds of time with the same methodical, ruthless patience that moved the Earth through the spinning void of Space. Quilted in a hollow tube of metal the great mechanism of time, the mechanical heart of this soulless place, continued to turn and grind. Huge cogs, thirty feet wide and serrated with teeth-like protrusions, filled the empty space connected by oil soiled steel rods.

Tiered at different levels, forming a tower of mechanised cogs and parts, the clock climbed ever upward through the dark shaft. In some ways a metaphor for mankind's struggle through the darkness of time towards enlightenment, in other ways a demonstration of the trap that was time itself. Time was endless and ultimately all human achievement would forever be lost in its merciless beat. The hiss of metal cogs clacking against metal cogs filled the chamber rising and falling like the swirl of ocean surf; entropy ruled.

At the highest interval the gradated mechanical disks gave way to the near translucent face of a gigantic clock, complete with hour, minute, and second hands, lay horizontally over the top like a cap or a lid to half conceal the great machine below. In various places throughout the metal shaft small antechamber had been carved out of the metal clad earth; spindly metal stairways and walkways wound around and around, like the trails of earthworms, following the ascension of the great clock around the walls.

The whole edifice flashed intermittently with pinkish white energy running through the single metal pole that acted as the main stem of the whole structure. The energy sparked and jumped from mechanism to mechanism like blood through the valves of a human heart. The clock ground on and the agonising slowness of the hour hand and the vicious sweep of the massive wrought iron second hand sliced apart the still, chilled air, like knives.

'So on a scale of ten,' Arclight queried as she rested uncomfortably on a swivel chair in an antechamber facing out to the clockwork beyond, 'how likely is it that we're gonna die for good this time?'

Scalphunter lifted his head from the console he was trying to hack, loose wires held in both his hands as he tried to splice a power junction. He stared at her with inscrutable black eyes for a moment and then turned away with curled lip and nary a word.

'Yeah,' Arclight scoffed, 'that's what I thought.' Rising stiffly, arms braced around her broken ribs, Arclight moved across the antechamber to come and stand by Scalphunter. She hadn't been Sinister's lackey anywhere as long as Scalphunter but she'd picked up a few things about Sinister's tech all the same.

'You reckon the Cajun's dead yet?' she asked as she looked through the doors in the antechamber to the hollow chamber beyond. The slow, arthritic ticking of the huge mechanical clock was giving her a headache and the whole room gave her the creeps.

'No,' Scalphunter finally deigned to answer her, 'He ain't dead yet.'

'Huh,' Arclight grunted and shuffled past Scalphunter to enter the clock chamber. The greasy scent of oil and metal parts filled her nostrils and she resisted the painful impulse to sneeze. After bolting from the Core chamber of this weird laboratory in God only knew where-ville, she and Scalphunter had been drawn by the sound of ticking to this crazy room with its huge clockwork parts.

The air inside the chamber was chill, like walking through the chiller aisle in the supermarket, and the metal all around her somehow seemed colder and less sterile than elsewhere in the base. There was something altogether more primitive about this massive machine, rawer and crueller. Almost as if the artifice of elegant inhumanity that surrounded most of Sinister's equipment was missing here and the true emptiness of the bastard's machinations were laid bare in this clock's design. The grinding, ratcheting sounds of clockwork cogs creasing together, rolling eternally onward and squeezing out time between each fang like protrusion made it seem to Arclight like she was standing inside a gigantic mill. She was just chafe in Sinister's great industry.

The once Marauder looked up towards the mother-of-pearl semi-translucent shimmer of the clock face high above her. Looking up at the clock from this angle seemed strange; it reminded her of looking up at the surface of a deep lack from the very bottom – like drowning in the midst of time itself.

'Get a grip,' Arclight curled her lip at her own thoughts. She wasn't much of one for deep thought, not like it had ever done her any good before. If anyone could hear her thoughts right now they'd laugh in her face. She was acting like a chicken-shit pussy; it was just a freaking clock!

Arclight was about to turn her back on the whole place and go see what 'Hunter was up to when something high above, at clock face level, caught her eye. She froze for a moment eyes widening as she recognised what she was seeing. She sucked in a sharp breath.

'Well shit,' she breathed out, wondering what she ought to do, 'Hey 'Hunter, lookit who just crashed the party!'

Many feet above Arclight's head Sinister's greatest obsession, Cyclops, set foot upon the face of time with the rest of the X-men at his back.

* * *

**Elsewhere and Elsewhen**

The pocket watch continued its endless count down, neither slowing down nor speeding up. The old man, witness to entropy, continued to lay out his convoluted game of solitaire and the world continued to exist, without really living.

The phantom lights from the Momentary Princess danced over the scummy surface of the water pooling in the runnels and cracks in the concrete sidewalk. Tiny images of memory, like bugs caught in amber, shifted and flickered in those reflections.

'Ah Stormy, you should never have left Africa, cherie,' The old man heaved another sigh, 'life's too short for altruism.' A pause, the aged and liver spotted hand hesitating to lay down another card. The old man snickered and shook his head, rat tailed and tangled dull grey hair slithering over his bowed shoulders, 'Least ways your life was, anyhow.'

Like dust in the mortuary grief was a fleeting thing; he had seen so many people die, friend, foe and passing acquaintance alike over the years that it had become the only true constant of his life. The pain of each passing had faded away, chip by chip like the veneer on a marble headstone.

The old man laid another card onto the cold ground; drain water from the busted pipe beginning to soak into the hem of his trouser leg. He frowned in momentary irritation; looked like he had forgotten to wear any shoes again. The old man curled his lip; he owned half this God forsaken country and had a hefty stake in most of the rest of the world, was it so much to expect that his minions would remember to dress him right? He was over a hundred years old, it weren't right that a man who'd seen a century of disasters and fleeting triumphs should have to dress himself at his age.

Two fat, gun metal grey pigeons fluttered down from the miserable sky to frolic in the puddles forming from the urban waterfall; the action was distraction enough for the old man. He smiled at them, forgetting his bare-footed misfortune with the ease of entrenched senile dementia, and carefully rooted around in the voluminous mounds of his ragged attire for a few stale crackers; crumbling the crackers he scattered the crumbs across the floor at his feet as an enticement. The birds regarded him with tiny cocked heads and glassy eyes before flopping down from their concrete perches to peck at the meal.

The old man watched for a little while, so still and restful that the birds lost what little wariness they had and cheerfully used his old bones as temporary resting places. The old man did not even twitch as one of the pigeons chose to nest on the top of his head, though inwardly he smiled at how apt it all was. He was a living relic of a dead era surrounded by the ruin of his world.

After a few moments the old man began to chew on one of the remaining crackers; his teeth were still good at least. Renal failure, repeated urinary tract infections, osteoporosis, anaemia, high blood pressure, emphysema and any number of other potentially lethal diseases and symptoms of old age all vying for the right to finally kill him off, but mon dieu, he still had his teeth.

The old man laughed brightly and the disgruntled pigeon trying to sleep on his head flew off in pique. Still snickering to himself the old man raised one gnarled hand and gestured for the Momentary Princess with regal negligence. The glowing temporal anomaly floated over to him.

The Witness tapped on the temporarily solid surface of the shimmering orb cupped between his palms with one finger.

'Lessee what de past holds then, oui?' He pressed his palms more firmly against the orb, holding time literally between the palms of his hands and squeezing down. The Momentary Princess began to glow pink as a fuse of biokinetic power ran through it and within it.

The old man's face split into a large and dangerous grin, one part lunatic, one part jackal and the rest sheer devilment. He began to laugh and laugh and laugh. Everything was happening just according to plan; as he knew it would. It was enough to make a body sick to his soul - if he still had one.

* * *

**The Garden: Time's Chamber**

Scalphunter looked up from the console he was trying to hack, a frown of irritation wreathing his brow. Since when had Sinister's interface been programmed in a mixture of French and Mandarin?

'What?' he growled as Arclight hobbled forward face animated.

'The X-men,' the woman snapped, 'above our heads. What are we gonna do now?'

Scalphunter frowned down at the console in abstract fashion. The last firewall had just fallen – he was in. The co-ordinates for all Sinister's satellite bases throughout the world, from Antarctica to Geneva scrolled down the screen. He stared at the screen.

'We fall on our swords, Arc, that's what we do.'

'Huh? What the hell's that supposed to mean?' she demanded angrily crowding him as she came around to see what he was doing with the console. Her eyes widened in comprehension, 'Oh shit.'

When she lifted her head Scalphunter was ready. He met her gaze with his own dead eyes. Arclight swallowed, 'We could just run for it. Tesseract command is operative; we just port out of here and don't quit running.'

'He'll just find us again.' Scalphunter pointed out calmly.

'Maybe the Cajun will finally off him?' Arclight involuntarily looked upwards as if she could see through the thick ceiling of the antechamber.

'Maybe,' Scalphunter did not think on the state Remy had been in when he'd fled the core with Arclight. Sinister was screwed, Remy would see to that, but any fool could see the kid was on a kamikaze mission. He didn't have to think about the hereafter, but Scalphunter had died too many times to be careless with the life he had left. He wanted to make sure no one would be coming after him. 'This way we can make sure that when Remy takes his shot it hits the mark.'

'Ah fuck,' Arclight spat emphatically but she didn't disagree. 'You'd just better open a portal for us to get the hell outta here.'

Scalphunter tapped in the command to open tesseract portals to all Sinister's bases and leave them open. He then tapped in a command to an address Remy had never told him, a plantation mansion in the middle of an alligator infested swamp in the Deep South. Arclight peered at these last co-ordinates and snorted in disbelief.

'I hope you know what you're doing,' she snapped.

Scalphunter didn't bother to reply to that. Instead he called up a map of the base, 'We're going to need a cloning unit.' He said, 'Go get one.' He didn't bother to look up to see if Arclight would obey him – he knew she would.

As Arclight left the antechamber and began the slow descent down the winding stairs of the Time Chamber the man called Scalphunter flexed his gloved fingers and frowned. He had spent sixty years of his unnatural life in service to a monster. He had been the Devil's right hand man. He had no reason to live, no ambitions, no desires for himself. He served, he followed orders, he killed by the whim of another. It was what he did. He did not want his freedom; he did not want another existence.

Matt black gloved fingers danced over the console and with each inputted command it seemed easy to interface with the machine, almost as if the artificial intelligence powering the system was warming to his plan. He called up the genetic record for Remy Etienne LeBeau; a perfect record of every atom of the kid's being. He downloaded the record from one database to another, smaller one. Then, without breaking his rhythm he began to hack deeper, he knew that Sinister had to have records of the kid's neurological patterns here somewhere, just like he did for all the Marauders. Just because he had never cloned LeBeau before didn't mean Essex didn't have the means to do it, after all. Essex had lacked the will to make a copy, at least while the original could still be exploited.

Scalphunter had the will to do it; a faithful hound must have a master and Scalphunter needed someone to serve. He'd just trade one master for another.

The Reaper Man would make himself a new Devil.

* * *

**The Garden: The Face of Time**

'Well shit, this just keeps getting weirder and weirder.'

Archangel took to the air, beating his powerful wings hard to get enough of an updraft to keep him aloft in the still, thin air of the chamber. He lifted his head and looked up past the gigantic clock face to the dim, pulsing blue light he could see far above his head.

A massive steel pole, as thick as a Redwood tree burst forth from the centre of the clock face and rose up into the distant light way above, below he could just make out through the milky filmy paleness of the clock face floor what looked like miles of darkness and clockwork mechanisms spiralling away into infinity.

'What is this place?' Storm asked hesitating to walk out over the eggshell thin veneer of the clock face and eyeing the sweep of the second hand arm warily.

Polaris stared out at the face of the clock, her ears and mind filled with the thunderous roar of the mechanisms below her feet and the agonising hiss of the ticking seconds. Her vision blurred, her throat convulsed and her knees turned to jelly. The only thing that stopped her from falling was Havok's hand on her elbow.

'Lorna?' she tried to focus on his face, concerned blue eyes, lips pursed into a grim line, but she couldn't. Her hands moved to her head, pressing over her ears in a futile attempt to block out the god-awful ticking.

'Can you hear it?'

She demanded wildly as the other X-men gathered around her, 'Can you hear it?' she tried to will the tears from her eyes; she tasted blood as her nose started to bleed. She could feel a build up of pressure and tension behind her sinuses; lightning bursts of pain zinged through her nerves and synapses. 'Can you hear the ticking?'

'Lorna! Lorna stop; you have to stop.' Alex tried to hold her hands away as Lorna's fingers curled into hooked claws and she began to scratch at her own face, clawing at the flesh of her cheeks as the horrid beat and hiss of the clock filled her mind and throbbed in her veins. Her body began to convulse. She tipped her head back and screamed an arc of emerald green magnetic energy roared up from her body.

'Ugh!' Havok was thrown backward, caught in a telekinetic bubble before he could crash into the steel walls of the shaft. X-men scattered to the far side of the clock face as Lorna's back arched off the ground and she screamed again.

'Make it stop! Make it stop!' There was a scream of metal and the hour hand, stumpy and at least five feet wide began to whirl around toward, dragged forward by Lorna's powers. The minute hand, longer, lighter but tipped with a lethal tapered edge sharpened to a fine point, spun above the hour hand, faster and with greater reach.

Havok staggered to his feet only to drop flat a second later as the minute hand whirred past him, lethal point level with his throat.

'Rogue!' Cyclops barked out the order but even before he had the southern X-woman had flown forward to wrestle the spinning spike. With a single grunt of effort Rogue managed to bend the point up and back a good foot before releasing the wildly spinning minute hand.

'Well don't that just take the cake?' she mused hovering in place and watching as the deformed minute hand crashed into the thin, wildly gyrating second hand shearing the thinner arm in half. 'Ah thought killer rose bushes were bad enough but this is gettin' outta hand y'all.'

There was little time for discussion however, the clock face floor was beginning to quiver and shudder under the assault of Lorna's powers. Phoenix was trying to calm Polaris while simultaneously trying to block her raging powers with a telekinetic buffer. Psylocke was hovering close by, psi-blade drawn and eyes fixed with hawk-like intensity on Lorna.

'What the hell is going on?' Cyclops demanded on no one and anyone at once. He was staring at the central metal pole that ran through the whole chamber from bottom to top. The pole was glowing with a familiar pinkish white energy. Bishop had approached the metal shaft and laid his hands on it, testing the energy. While the telepaths and Havok corralled Lorna Wolverine prowled around the periphery of the clock face.

'It's the ticking, make it stop, I can't stand the ticking!' Lorna was sobbing but she had begun to calm down. Head bowed and hands covering her face she struggled to take a breath drawing her powers back into herself. 'I can feel it in my bones; it hurts!'

Cyclops frowned, 'Clocks – and ticking,' he murmured, 'why does this seem familiar?' he asked dryly and rhetorically with a wry shake of his head. He was therefore surprised when Storm answered him.

'We must assume that Sinister has some mechanism for controlling his Marauders,' she said grimly, 'I think we have just found it.'

Cyclops looked over sharply at his second in command, 'You think _this_,' he waved a hand frustrated, to incorporate the massive mechanism all around and below them in his gesture, 'is some kind of mind control device?'

Storm did not look at him and instead fixed her impassive gaze on Polaris who was trying to shrug off both Jean and Alex's concerned touches as she gathered herself.

'Remy was obsessed with clocks,' Storm said calmly and Cyclops found the fact that she referred to Gambit in the past tense highly interesting, 'and the message Polaris and Sabretooth left at Falls Edge made reference to a ticking clock. If we assume that the message was as much a challenge to Sinister as it was to the X-men then it seems reasonable to assume, especially in light of Lorna's reaction just now, that ticking clocks is somehow synonymous with Sinister's control over them.'

Cyclops frown grew pensive, 'Possibly but that explanation leaves a lot of holes. It also suggests that Gambit, and Lorna, were being influenced by Sinister all along, and that just doesn't gel with what we know. If they were under his control none of this would have happened.'

Storm opened her mouth to respond and then closed it tightly, nodding once, a sharp gesture. 'You are right Cyclops.' Her expression muddied with a mixture of anxiety and frustration for a moment, 'I cannot escape the feeling that there is yet another player pulling strings from afar; a force that we do not know. There are too many contrivances, too many loose ends.'

Cyclops stared at Storm for a moment, 'Christ, who else could there be? Who else would have a stake in this?'

* * *

**Waiting in the Wings of Time**

The old man threw his head back, laughter aged as parchment pages torn from the tomes of time, crackled through the still dead air of this dead city. Thin tears ran down sallow skinned cheeks.

'Ah, mon Capitan, you don' wan' know de answer to dat one!' Laughter gave way to wheezing and the old man had to take a number of shaking breaths to ease the tightness in his thin and wasted chest and the ticking palpitations in his heart.

There was no scuffing of feet or scramble of grit and rubble to give away the approach of the new presence, but the old man lifted his wizened head all the same and his smile grew broad as a shark.

'Shackle,' he acknowledged the masked woman without turning to face her. Shackle did not appreciate eye contact all that much.

'Master,' the woman dressed all in form-fitting white, like a coat of glimmering metallic paint covering her strong, athletic physique hesitated on the rise created by ruptured asphalt just behind the old man. Her gossamer fine cobweb pale hair fluttered in the dull breeze behind her back.

'I heard noise and came to ensure you were unharmed.'

The old man chuckled raspily, 'It be called laughter, shackle, you should try it some time cherie, mebbe you even like it, no?'

There was an awkward moment of silence before Shackle spoke up again, adroitly avoiding responding to the old man's previous comment. 'Master is that....?'

Shackle did not finish as both their attention became fixed on the visage of a man's face as it materialised within the sphere of the Momentary Princess. The man had strong, wide features, a pensive expression and a large 'M' tattooed over his left eye.

The old man's smile darkened and deepened, 'Yes,' he breathed dryly and with no little satisfaction, 'de pup be about to earn his keep.'

Shackle sucked in a sharp breath of surprise and comprehension behind his back, 'Then that means that….' She jumped nimbly off the ridge and paced forward as if to touch the Princess. Shackle knew better however and veered off at the last moment to stand and face her master.

'Oui,' the old man nodded sagely, and just a little tiredly, 'De Witness is about to rise.' He lifted the pocket watch in his old and weary hands. The minute hand lurched toward the top of the hour as the mechanism began to slow down.

'I can still hear de tickin',' the old man murmured mostly to himself - or maybe to the man he used to be. The man he had contrived to destroy a thousand times or more before. A man had no worse an enemy than his own self, after all.

* * *

**The Face of Time**

'Hey y'all, where'd Bishop go?'

Rogue's question startled the X-men and all of them looked around at the seemingly empty space around them, the sheer metal walls, the shimmering face of the clock beneath their feet, the echoing space above them. Rogue crossed her arms under chest, 'How'd he manage to sneak away from us?'

'And why did he do it?' Psylocke added coolly.

Wolverine snarled sharply a growl in every syllable of his next words, 'Bishop ain't the only one gone walkabout.' He bared his teeth, 'Boudreaux's gone too. Don't know how I coulda missed 'em.'

'I don't like this Scott,' Jean turned to her husband, poised to say something more but she was silenced by Ororo's shocked gasp.

Storm was standing by the central metal pillar bisecting the chamber and rising high above their heads. Her eyes were wide and fixed in startlement and her right hand hovered close to her cheek where a single, thick drop of crimson blood, almost black in the gloom, quivered and rolled down the line of her face.

'Storm!' more than one X-man moved towards her as Ororo caught the drop of blood on her finger before it fell from her chin. She blinked in confusion, 'It is not mine.'

All eyes followed Storm's as she looked up at the cavernous ceiling. From the eldritch glowing heights another fat drop of blood landed at Storm's feet, as other patters of crimson dribbled down the cold steel of the central pillar.

Wolverine prowled forward and grabbed Ororo's hand sniffing at the blood on her fingers before crouching low to scent the blood spatters on the clock face floor. His lips curled back from his gums as feral and angry as a wolf; his blue eyes hard and merciless.

He said one word only, 'Gumbo.'

Rogue took flight, shooting upwards like a missile. Her scream came a second before cold white light illuminated the entire chamber shaft. High above their heads, almost directly above them, a human man hung, suspended by dozens of glowing cables, like a fly in a spider's web. The man's head lolled downward and his dark hair obscured his face; from the ends of his saturated hair droplets of blood fell a hundred feet to land at the X-men's feet upon the glowing surface of the clock.

'No, God no,' Rogue shuddered in mid-air. Her single whisper was louder than her scream, 'Remy.'

A tall, cloak swathed figure walked forward upon a platform just below the mesh of cables; red eyes glowed with a burning satisfaction. 'Welcome X-men,' a voice like thunder and cold as scalpels fell upon them, 'You are just in time to_ witness_ what fate awaits all those who defy the will of Mr. Sinister.'

Sinister began to laugh as a steady shower of scarlet rained down upon the face of time.

* * *

_A/N: Hello everyone, I'm back from vacation. I apologise that this chapter isn't my best - it was so hard to get back into things! Still I have my plot-bunnies in line now and next chapter will get with the long awaited X-men/Sinister slap down!_ _P.S: for all those people who reviewed the last chapter but did not get a response: I apologise, but I thought you all might appreciate a new chapter rather than a rambling email from me. I promise that I will reply personally to all reviews I receive from here-on-in. ;) _


	39. Chapter 39

**Chapter Thirty-Eight: Termination**

**Memory**

The man dribbling a ball before the basketball net under the milky full moon knew Bishop was watching him but made no attempts to engage him in conversation. Bishop took this as tacit permission to continue his surveillance – not that he needed permission to watch a potential security risk to the X-men, of course. Bishop frowned at the doubt in that thought and, with uncanny timing, Gambit paused to look at him for the first time, spinning the ball on one finger; sparks of pink striking out against the night air like the neon bubblegum trails of fluorescent fireworks.

Bishop did not bother to ask why the man was shooting hoops at one in the morning; he did not expect logic from anyone called LeBeau.

'You wanna play, pup?'

Draped in his trench coat, which clung to him drably daubed in uniform shadow down to his ankles Gambit's teeth flashed white in the brilliance of the security light twenty yards away. The man's hair had been messily pulled back at the nape of his neck and wiry strands sprang up around the crown of his head to fall in a jagged sweep into his eyes. Those eyes glowed luridly in the poor lighting.

Bishop said nothing; he just watched. He would always watch, waiting for some sign that the Witness he knew lived in the promise of this young fool before him.

'Wha's de matter pup, cat got your tongue?' The basketball shot towards Bishop, launched with expert aim straight for his chest. Bishop reacted with ingrained instinct; he loosed a low level energy blast at the offending projectile and incinerated the rubbery air-filled sphere of plastic before he realised that Gambit had not charged the ball.

The ball popped and smoking strips of scorched plastic and rubber rained down onto the court; the two men watched it without a word. Then Gambit lifted his head, arched one shaggy brow at Bishop and smirked, 'Tsk, I'ma gon tell de Professeur, you offed his ball, homme. He gon ground you or somet'ing.'

A cigarette appeared like magic from the inner folds of Gambit's coat, 'You got to learn to lighten up, Bish. Life too short for de metal rod you got inserted up your ass.' Gambit ducked his head and lit the cigarette with one finger. Closing his eyes the man smiled faintly with the first drag.

'Ah oui, dere not'ing like dat firs' smoke o' de day,' the red eyes opened again, glittering in the moonlight and shadow with fey light.

'I do not trust you.' Bishop said inadequately, as he watched the Cajun's every move. The red eyes scrutinised him with a patient, vaguely amused, red regard.

'Oui, I know. De constant suspicion, de aspersions against m' good name, de stalkin' routine an' de fact dat you tell me dat at least twice a week kinda gave me a clue.'

Gambit beamed at him and continued mildly, 'If'n you hadn' tried to kill me de firs' time we met I mighta thought dat you were jus' wildly attracted to my hot self.' A self-deprecating smile quivered on Gambit's lips before a look of faux thoughtfulness crossed his features even as pure devilment lit his eyes. Gambit pulled the cigarette from his lips and the tip of his tongue brushed over his top lip meditatively, 'Den again, dey say unrequited love can do strange t'ings to a body, no?'

Bishop's face creased in utter revulsion and he could not stop himself taking a step back in total disgust. 'You are reprehensible.'

A cascade of cold sick outrage lashed through Bishop; this man would one day come to feed, clothe, and shelter him. Such suggestions, even made in jest, were absolutely revolting. Then again, Gambit did not know anything about his future, and the man enjoyed pushing the envelope of good sense and courtesy with everyone.

The Witness had liked to do that too.

'Repre-what?' Gambit blinked at him, 'Now mon ami, I be jus' a po' boy from de Swamp. Don't be right you usin' all dem city slicker big ole words on dis boy. He ain't gon be able to keep up wit' you,' Another blinding snake like smile, another insipient challenge.

Bishop curled his lip in contempt, 'You do not fool me, LeBeau. You are no ignorant red neck.'

The Cajun cocked his head to the side curiously, 'No?'

'No,' Bishop asserted firmly.

Gambit's smile turned sly, 'D'accord den – but if dat be so, den what am I, eh pup?'

Bishop blinked and was almost too slow to strangle the words that wanted to leap to his lips: you were the only father I ever knew. You were my teacher and my guardian. You were the most powerful man in my childhood and you were the yard stick I used to measure myself against. You were everything I loathed and rebelled against. You were my jailor and my enemy; you are the last link to my world I have left in this one. You were the Witness, custodian of the secrets of the past and now you do not know me. I am alone.

'Tsk,' Gambit shook his head after a moment when Bishop remained silent, 'An' people say _I_ got secrets.' He crushed out the cigarette under his boot. 'Got a notion for you to chew on homme, somet'ing you mebbe not thought of while you been condemnin' me wit'out due cause.'

The red eyes flashed and Gambit was suddenly in Bishop's personal space and looking up at him intently. The acrid sour and decayed scent of cigarette smoke assaulted Bishop's nostrils.

Gambit spoke, 'You say dat one day I will betray ev'ryone I care 'bout, oui? You say dat I gon leave de X-men high an' dry when dey need me, c'est vrai?'

Bishop nodded, 'The man you will become is a tyrant; betrayal is his creed.'

Gambit raised one negligent hand to scratch at the beard growth shadowing his chin and jaw. The sound his fingertips made rasping over stubble was strangely loud and intimate in the late night darkness. Gambit's eyes burned past Bishop's shoulder seeing nothing in particular.

'Mebbe, but like Rogue don tol' you dat firs' time, I can't do a t'ing about a future dat ain't happened yet an' mebbe won' ever happen. I jus' a man; got to walk m' path one day at a time. An' dere be no way o' tellin' where it gon lead, d'accord?'

'That is the only reason I have not killed you - yet.' Bishop lied. The red eyes snapped to him and Gambit's sneering smirk broke the meditative mood of the moment.

'Liar; if'n you believed I really gon' betray de X-men not'ing woulda stopped you. You ain't no babe in de woods; dere be blood enough on your hands already.' Another flash of teeth and Gambit rather foolhardily poked Bishop in the upper chest, 'It takes a liar to call out a liar, pup. I got me a trove o' secrets in my past I intend to keep hidden,' those red eyes watched him conceding nothing and challenging everything, 'an' so do _you_.'

'You do not know me,' Bishop snapped before he could help himself. He caught the hand poking him and flung it away. Gambit laughed at him but stepped back a pace so he was no longer in Bishop's face. That last statement hung between them, weighted with things Bishop would not tell and Gambit could not know.

'Well dat true 'nough,' Gambit conceded easily, tilting his chin up to scratch at the delicate skin underneath once again. 'Need a shave me,' he murmured distractedly, while Bishop waited, as much in Gambit's thrall now as he had always been in the Witness' presence. Eventually Gambit deigned to pay attention to Bishop once more.

'What we be talkin' 'bout?' he snapped his fingers without waiting for reply, a grin striking across his face once more, 'Ah oui, I 'member.' Gambit arched his brows expressively and rocked back on his heels like a vaudeville performer.

The overly theatrical and overblown gestures Gambit made reminded Bishop powerful of the Witness who had devised an art form from a certain brand of theatrical lunacy.

'Here be a question for you, Bish: I don' know you, dat true, but if'n what you be sayin' 'bout where you come from be truthful an' not de wors' kinda bullshit I ever done heard, well…..' Gambit paused deliberately well aware of the power he had over Bishop and enjoying it immensely.

'Well what?' Bishop did not want to speak but fifteen years in the Witness' care had left ingrained habits hard to break. The Witness had held kings and presidents to ransom for hours, waiting on cryptic secrets and half truths to slip from his ancient and mumbling lips.

Gambit just shrugged, scuffing his old work boots against the concrete of the basketball court and toeing a piece of tattered basketball debris around.

'T'aint not'ing much; it jus' seem to me dat if'n you be de only one dat know de future,' again Gambit paused glancing up at Bishop furtively through the heavy bangs dangling down into his face, 'even if'n it jus' a lil' bit o' what gon happen an' who gon' do what,' an odd smile twitched the Cajun's lips, 'well den ultimately what happen in de future, from here on, gon be your fault, oui?'

'What?' Bishop stepped forward, hands curling into fists. Gambit chuckled and danced back a step, fanning his empty hands out to the sides and giving Bishop a winsome, falsely innocent grin.

'T'ink 'bout it, homme; you say dat in de future you come from I some kinda boogeyman dat done you wrong, oui? Well, in de here an' now dat ain't de case; I ain't in a position to do much o' anyt'ing to you.'

Gambit cocked his head to the side, 'In fact you got alla us at a disadvantage. You know de when, if not de how, o' de X-men's deaths; dat's power pup, real power. Question is what you gon do wit' it, eh?'

Bishop stayed silent and stunned by Gambit's insinuation. How could the man even question what course of action Bishop would take? 'I must save the X-men and ensure the abuses of my time do not come to pass.'

Gambit studied him, 'You t'ink you can?'

Bishop nodded grimly, 'I am prepared to do what I must.'

Gambit nodded in turn, and then asked in a gratingly inquiring tone of voice, 'So, if'n I turn int' de tyrant you say I be in your time, den basic'ly it gon be because you screwed up, oui?'

Bishop's teeth ground together, his blunt nails digging into the flesh of his palms as his clenched fists convulsed. Gambit laughed delightedly reading every twitch of fury and discomfort in Bishop's body. The younger, smaller, leaner man jumped forward and clasped Bishop's rigid shoulders.

'M' future's in your hands pup; don' fuck up now.'

Lunacy and total disregard for his safety bright in those red eyes Gambit rose nimbly onto his tip-toes and darted his head forward, hands coming up to palm Bishop's face all in one lightning fast movement; before Bishop could react Gambit laid a big wet kiss to the centre of Bishop's forehead.

'LeBeau!'

Bishop shoved the Cajun off him, but Gambit was already moving and he danced away before Bishop could make contact. Gambit's laughter only added to the broiling surf of fury percolating through Bishop's veins. He twisted furiously to watch the insane Cajun saunter away back towards the shadowed bulk of the mansion.

'G'night pup, don' stay up too late now, eh?'

Then Gambit was gone, melting easily into the darkness and shadows. Still for a long time after Bishop stared after him, into the empty night. He never did forget, thereafter, that one encounter in many between himself and LeBeau, though he suspected Gambit had.

Certainly Bishop found it impossible to forget Gambit's words to him: _My future is in your hands, pup._

The words haunted him - like a curse.

* * *

**The Face of Time**

The scene was set, perfect in its barbarism. A man dangled from a spider's web of phosphor bright and lurid cables. One shoulder obviously dislocated, the arm hanging limply, the fingers of the other hand dripping blood to fall through the chill air to the glowing face of time far below. The man's body, leg broken and bone protruding from the flesh of his calf, was a patch work of lacerations, a quilt of bruises. His whole being a treatise etched in flesh, on the application of violence.

The white lights mercilessly rubbed over every abuse, every degradation. Nothing was left to the imagination; nothing was left hidden for dignity's sake. It was a tableau both horrible and horribly contrived. It was a message in futility that the desired audience, those X-men far below, could not fail to receive in full.

It was also a lie. So many things are, after all.

'Do you see, X-men,' Sinister hissed triumphantly, gesticulating wildly towards his masterpiece in pain, 'do you see now the futility of opposing me?'

In fiction and prose all moments are special; all actions have meaning and all endings offer something in the way of resolution. Everything has a purpose; all things contribute to the basic narrative of the work. A punch in the face is not just a punch in the face; death is never truly random. Everything has a meaning, and poignancy; if it didn't why bother to write it?

Real life does not work that way.

Therefore when Rogue launched herself, silent and deadly, at Mr Sinister, tears blazing in her eyes and face contorted in near mindless rage there may have been the expectation that this action should have some sort of impact. It should have mattered. When she punched Sinister in the face and he stood there and let her it should have made a difference.

Fiction has a lot to answer for; it too is a liar.

In real life a punch is just a punch and an energy blast to the sternum hurts like hell. Rogue would attest to that - once she regained consciousness.

'Archangel!' Cyclops barked out an order compressed into a single word and his old friend took flight in an instant, catching the unconscious X-woman as she plummeted back down the shaft towards the glowing face of the gigantic clock. If Rogue had shattered the clock face as she landed the X-men would all have lost their footing and perhaps fallen to the grinding mechanisms below.

The X-men snapped into action. It was a testament to them all that they did not hesitate. They did not give way in the face of the mangled human form above them, his blood dripping like intermittent rain onto their heads.

Storm took to the air, lightning crackling around her body, hair whipping hither and thither in the winds she summoned without conscious thought. Yet she hesitated to strike Sinister surrounded as they all were by so much electricity conductive metallic parts.

'Your aggression is futile X-men,' Sinister called down to them, 'I have no inclination to indulge your misguided ire any longer. Leave this peace and be grateful that Mr Sinister shows you such beneficence.'

The air hummed with a strange static melody and the walls of the massive metal shaft boring deep into the depths of the Earth thrummed with a familiar energy; fuchsia and white shading to red and blue at its most potent.

The man dangling from tensile cables high above the X-men's head did not react as his mutagenic energies were siphoned from his body; strangely though the walls of the shaft and the cables glowed painfully bright the man's skin did not. A tesseract portal opened, like a blind red eye, in the fabric of space in front of the X-men.

'Leave,' Sinister repeated.

'Never,' Storm answered for them all.

'X-men don't leave anyone behind; especially not team-mates.' Archangel came to land with a groggy Rogue in his arms. He set her down on the clock face and both glared daggers up at Sinister.

Psylocke and Phoenix remained silent; there were unshed tears in Jean's eyes. She kept her thoughts tightly shielded from her husband. Psylocke's expression was still and remote.

Havok and Polaris stood close together. Polaris was standing on her own two feet again, but Havok remained close at hand should she need him. Both stood looking up at the battered, motionless man hanging from fuchsia glowing cables.

'I can't see clearly…..is he…?' Lorna Dane squinted upwards through the painful cold white light pouring down from above and through the hot, fizzing glow of Gambit's own powers.

Alex Summers shook his head minutely. 'Not that I can tell,' he said very quietly.

Wolverine's claws snikt out to full extension; he didn't need to see. He could hear and he could smell and he knew what he wasn't hearing and what he could smell even from down here.

Storm's eyes were clear and white as the heart of a blizzard, 'Release Gambit this instance.' Her imperious command was as cold and precise as Sinister himself.

The monster geneticist let his blind red gaze sweep over each X-man in turn, 'To do so would not only be an act of cataclysmic stupidity but would also prove quite pointless. Leave X-men; you do not know what you do.' The madman added cryptically.

Storm blinked, bobbing up and down in mid-air. Her flight winds ruffled the chill air filling the shaft and the scent of blood and pain mingled with that of cold steel and oil. Rogue jumped to her feet.

'What's that supposed to mean? We're takin' Remy home Sinister an' there ain't a thing ya can do ta stop us!'

Jean Grey-Summers closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. Psylocke manifested her psi-blade and split her attention evenly between the grounded Mississippian and the air-borne African goddess. She was not sure which would react the most grievously. Scott Summers read the truth in the skin of his wife's drawn closed eyelids.

'Jean?'

Polaris summoned a magnetic shield around her and sampled the alloys in this place; she tasted the different fusions of metal and non-metal components and considered what she could use in battle – and there would be battle. There would be blood, if she had any say in it. Her gaze flickered back up to the man suspended from glowing cables above her head.

There would be blood.

Havok thought about meta-narratives and the abstractions of good and evil as he closed his hands into fists and they began to glow white hot. He stepped up beside his brother and faced Sinister.

Wolverine stalked forward towards the rest of the X-men standing in a group upon the face of the broken clock that no longer kept track of the ebb and flow of time.

'This ain't a rescue mission anymore Cyke,' he said simply in his gruff voice. 'Yer still gonna pussy-foot around, or are we gonna give Gumbo the respect he's due an' deal with this sonofabitch once and fer all?'

'What?' Rogue wheeled on them, 'What the hell are ya talkin' about? Remy's right there….he's….'

'Dead,' Sinister looked down on them as he reached out and grabbed a fistful of Gambit's blood matted and over-long bangs. Savagely he jerked the Cajun's lolling head upwards. Gambit did not react; his eyes glued close under a thick patina of drying blood.

Rogue made not a sound; one moment she was standing with the X-men the next she was floating by Gambit's limp form. No one had ever seen her fly so fast. There was no expression on her girlish face as she reached out towards the man she had tried very hard to love.

She did not even look at Sinister; she did not fear him. She did not fear anything at that moment save what her own senses might tell her when she touched gloved fingers to Gambit's pulse point. Sinister merely watched her.

Far below Jean Grey-Summers opened up her mind so that she could watch with more than just her eyes. She watched Sinister and something seemed wrong. There was something wrong about _all _of this. She just didn't know what that something was.

'I don't like this…..' she chanted to herself, mind working furiously.

Rogue's gloved fingertips reached out to brush the blood matted hair from Gambit's face. She brushed her fingertips over his smooth forehead, his closed eyes, the bridge of his nose; all of it a distraction.

Steeling herself she pulled Gambit's head from Sinister's grip as gently as she could and cupped her palm around his throat, just under his left ear. Once again Sinister remained passive; almost like a puppet abandoned by the puppeteer. Not that Rogue noticed this.

Instead she willed herself to ignore the insulating layer of fabric between her flesh and Remy's; she willed the rest of the world away while she listened for the deep throb of his beating heart. She listened and she waited as the seconds went by.

The X-men and Sinister waited too.

* * *

**Central Core**

Remy Etienne LeBeau opened his eyes. He hurt. He hurt everywhere all at once. The sudden influx of pain signals racing through his nervous system might have sent him spiralling back into deep oblivion if it wasn't for the fact that he'd never been that damned lucky.

For the first several minutes of consciousness all he could do, as he struggled to continue breathing without hyperventilating, was to stare straight upwards to the mummified body of Amanda Mueller still trussed up to the central spire of the Central Core. It wasn't a reassuring view - but at least it helped Remy to orientate himself to where precisely in hell he was.

Somewhere south of completely fucked, if he reckoned rightly.

'Mon Dieu,' he whispered not irreverently as he realised that he must, despite all the odds, still be alive. Who knew he was that hard to kill? A strange sensation prickling at the back of Remy's mind alerted him to the presence of the Garden in his brain. He blinked.

It didn't take a genius to realise something had gone wrong; seriously wrong. The Garden should be a smoking crater in the middle of the New Mexico desert by now and Remy should have been roasting nicely in the eternal fiery pits of hell.

'Fuckin' hell,' frustration gave him strength and Remy was able to push himself up, using the muscles of his back and stomach and his one good leg, so that he was half-sitting and half-slumped against the wall instead of lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. The Garden poked at his brain a little more urgently; it wanted to tell him something but Remy was too put out to listen.

'Dammit, you s'posed to o' self-destructed by now.' He snapped raising his filament infested hand to his forehead shakily and poking gingerly at the oozing gouge in his forehead. 'Ow.' He dropped his hand. Note to self: don't do that again. The Garden prodded him again.

_Run; runrunrunrunrunrunrun_

'Ugn,' squeezing his eyes closed Remy tried to employ the old tricks for keeping telepaths out of his head to block off the panicked signals coming from the Garden. He couldn't; just like he'd struggle to evict a telepath he'd invited into his mind. The Garden had dug her tendrils into his mind and she wasn't leaving any time soon.

Although he couldn't understand it, and he was fairly sure he was missing something pretty important, Remy decided that possibly the Garden had the right idea. Getting the hell out of here couldn't hurt. A humourless smile flickered on the edges of his mouth; ha ha. That was a good one. Considering he only had one working arm and one working leg getting out of here was likely to hurt a helluva lot.

C'est la vie; at least Essex had gone.

As Remy began to belly crawl over the laser pitted and debris strewn floor of the Central Core walkway towards the blown out doors of what he hoped was the exit he wondered vaguely where Essex had gone and what he was planning. Somehow he doubted the homme was just going to sit back and let his life's work be stolen from right under his nose.

It occurred to Remy that his ingenious plan had a fair few loopholes. Namely, having been confident that someone would kill him at some point in the scheme, Remy had completely failed to come up with a contingency plan _just in case he didn't die_. You didn't need contingency planning when you were dead, right? But now that he wasn't dead, or at least wasn't dead _yet, _Remy was faced with all those unfortunate consequences of his actions he'd really hoped to bypass in death. The injustice of the whole thing was staggeringly unfair – or at least it was to Remy at the time.

'Tsk, dis is why I don' make long terms plans,' he muttered to himself head spinning with pain. 'I got no sense o' follow through.'

Awkward and ungainly Remy wriggled painfully across the ground with more urgency; he needed to warn the X-men. They wouldn't know how to deal with a royally pissed off Sinister. They wouldn't be prepared on account of the fact that throughout this whole thing they had been nothing more than Remy's patsies. Mon Dieu, Remy didn't even know what Sinister would do - or why Sinister hadn't killed him when he had the chance. Reaching out to pull himself forward with his one good hand tears of frustration and pain squeezed free of Remy's eyes.

'You an idiot LeBeau,' Remy chastised himself as he made agonising slow progress across the floor, 'what you t'ink gon happen? You t'ink Sinister jus' gon give in when he learn de X-men got all his secrets?' Sharp splinters of glass and metal jabbed into the flesh of Remy's underbelly as he wriggled across the floor and he left a trail of blood like that of a slug across the walkway in his wake. Still he kept going; keeping going for no sensible reason was kind of his raison d'etre, after all. 'You t'ink Belle really gon' find a weapon 'gainst Sinister when no one else be able to? Moron.'

_Run, _the Garden urged him in really unhelpful manner, _we are in danger; runrunrunrunrun._

There was fire in his lungs and blood froth flecked his lips but Remy LeBeau did not stop his ungainly, hideous forward motion. With one hand and painful undulations of his stomach and thighs he inched forward pushing agony and unconsciousness away as he struggled onward. The doorway seemed a long, long way away.

_Run, _the Garden exhorted him, _live. _

His vision washed out into biting spots of black and white; his pulse in his own head was impossibly loud, splitting his mind to pieces as he dragged himself across the ground. Pinwheels of pain ignited through his nerves and his lungs filled with fluids that should not be in there.

_Run, _the Garden pressed, _live. _

When Remy was just yards from the door his strength failed him; his fingers lost the ability to grip, his lungs threatened to collapse and his head cracked down onto the cold floor. _Runrunrun, _the Garden would not allow him to seep into unconsciousness but she could not give him the strength to surpass the injuries he had sustained. Defeated Remy closed his eyes.

'I'm sorry,' he whispered though he did not know who he was apologising to, or what for. A shadow fell upon him from the doorway. Silent feet ghosted across those last few yards. A black leather duster fanned open as a dark clad man crouched on the ground beside Remy. He opened his eyes as the newcomer checked his pulse.

Remy squinted woozily up into a saturnine face and dark, empty eyes, '…….Grey….?'

'Hey kid,' Grey Crow reached into a pocket of his coat and withdrew a syringe. As the mercenary pushed the plunger down Remy didn't feel the prick of the needle at the back of his neck, but he did feel the wash of cool relief as the pain-killer swept through his body. He released a shaky breath, memories of the Reaper Man of his lost childhood filling his brain as the morphine took him away from his woes.

D'accord if he couldn't have death he'd take heavy duty narcotics oblivion as a substitute. Mon dieu he loved opiates; God's gift to the hopeless, that's what they were.

Remy didn't really feel it as Scalphunter scooped him up like a child in his arms and rose to his feet. The Garden was stabbing at his mind, but the Morphine sorted that out. From inches away, vision washed out by drugs and pain, Remy reminded himself that Grey Crow had betrayed him more times then anyone else in his life and every time it had been to Essex. That fact seemed strangely important but Remy couldn't line up his thoughts into the correct cause and effect process to work out why.

The Garden prodded him again and this time, emboldened by the cessation in his pain, Remy prodded back. He re-issued the self-destruct command. He wasn't taking any stupid chances; one way or the other he was going to make sure Essex never re-gained control of the Garden. He hadn't gone through all this shit for nothing. Somehow Remy knew that he'd never be free if the Garden survived. Still he couldn't follow through with that thought; he was scared he'd lost control of the pot somehow. He was no longer sure how the cards were going to fall. He just knew that they were falling fast.

_Run, _the Garden insisted, _Live. _

Remy let his eyes slip fully closed before Grey Crow had breached the threshold of the Central Core. He did not see Arclight at all as she beckoned for Scalphunter from further down the corridor.

That was alright though, because neither of the former Marauder's saw the blonde woman and the large black man who watched them from around the corner at the other end of the corridor.

Belladonna Boudreaux clicked off the safety on her baretta. She smiled, 'Gotcha.'

Bishop said nothing at all, his eyes rooted to the unconscious form in Scalphunter's arms.

* * *

**The Face of Time**

'You fucking monster!'

Whirling around as fast as a dervish Rogue spun, fists blurring and this time a punch to the face carried the weight of a Rhino's charge. Sinister's flesh distorted as his head twisted on the stem of his neck and jerked him off balance. The geneticist teetered on the precipice and Rogue delivered an upper-cut that would have shattered any other man's head into pieces.

'You killed him, fucking monster!'

Sinister fell over the edge of the platform and down towards the clock face. Rogue shot down after him, fists extended and slammed into Sinister's abdomen with the force of a runaway locomotive. She smashed him into the throbbing white-blue glowing wall of the shaft. Her punches slammed through Sinister's flesh like a pneumatic drill, sending quaking shudders reverberating through the shaft.

Screaming inarticulately Rogue snatched Sinister by the skull and threw him like garbage down towards the face of the clock. Lightning strobed through the air, casting the shaft into lurid shadows of glowing red, blue and darkest black. Storm's lightning bolts found grounding in Sinister's flesh as he fell. The winds picked up and localised gales smashed Sinister once again into the wall.

All this happened in seconds and never once did Sinister react in anyway to defend himself.

Down below Cyclops waited for Sinister to fall to his level. He told himself that he would not fire; he would not take the easy way. When his brother took a step forward he reached out and pulled him back.

'You're better than that.'

Alex stared at him, 'Sometimes moral superiority is just an excuse for indecision, Scott.'

'And sometimes towing the line is all we have to keep sane.' Scott shot back.

Sinister's disintegrating body, wreathed in forks of white lightning, smashed into the face of time. Across the translucent surface cracks appeared; Sinister looked like an insect splattered over a windshield. Rogue shot downwards; she wasn't anywhere near finished yet. Storm rose on her flight winds towards the body hanging from glowing cables. Her face was dark carven marble; her eyes without mercy.

Rogue began tearing lumps out of Sinister with her bare hands. Cyclops shot a glance towards Jean even as his wife moved forward, a slight frown of concentration upon her brow and gestured with one hand towards Rogue.

Rogue howled in fury as Phoenix's telekinetic grip pried her from the rapidly dissolving corpse of Sinister.

'Leggo o' me! Leggo ah'm gonna kill 'im. He killed Remy. He _killed _him.'

* * *

**Central Core: promontory level**

The platform extended over empty space like an artificial headland over a ravine, rounded off at the end the promontory platform contained an odd contraption, reminiscent of a sarcophagus made out of glittering components and stainless steel. The sarcophagus was man shaped; made to very specific measurements. Arclight stood beside the machine hands to her hips as Scalphunter carried the limp Cajun towards it.

'You sure this isn't gonna bite us on the ass?' Arclight demanded as she pulled open the door to the machine. Below them flares of supernova energy in shades of cold red and gas burner blue silently scorched over the lower walkways of the Central Core breaking down matter to its component atoms in utter silence; inch by inch that energy ate away at the spire crawling upwards towards the body of Amanda Mueller, a nuclear reaction in slow motion.

'Remy's the only one who can stop this place from blowin' sky high,' Scalphunter stated not for the first time.

'Yeah but the Cajun's never been all that hot at stopping things from blowin' up,' Arclight pointed out reasonably, 'kinda the reverse, actually. I didn't know he could suck his power back in like that.'

'He can't,' Scalphunter agreed as he propped Remy up inside the moulded interior of the machine. Efficiently he began snapping the restraints around Remy's neck and torso.

'Uh, okay Mr. Cryptic, then why the fuck are we bothering with the Iron Maiden routine when we should be gettin' the hell out of here before we're vaporised?' Arclight's exasperation snapped through the air like the static build up from the silent and deadly flares of power below them.

Scalphunter flicked his eyes at Arclight and frowned, 'Sinister made this machine; it's keyed in with the kid's genetic blueprint, and some other shit that Sinister was going to use to give Remy full control of his powers.'

Arclight raised her eyebrows appreciatively, 'I'm gonna guess it's also programmed to give the Cajun-cutie an attitude adjustment too, right? Bring out the inner Marauder in the kid?'

'Something like that,' Scalphunter agreed evasively; knowing full well that he'd already re-programmed a lot of the machine from Sinister's original template. He didn't need Remy to be a killer.

'So why didn't the bossman just stick Gambit in this thing as soon as he got him here?' Arclight asked.

'Because he's an arrogant asshole,' Scalphunter snapped. 'He wanted Remy to join up willingly.'

Arclight considered that answer for about one point five seconds. 'Right,' She nodded, 'that was pretty stupid of him.' She moved to help Scalphunter secure the Cajun cutie in the machine.

At that moment the twin rapports of two very different guns being cocked caused both Marauders' to freeze. A dark voice growled from behind them as the butt of a very large rifle was shoved into Scalphunter's spine.

'Get away from LeBeau or I will execute you.'

* * *

**The Face of Time**

As Jeannie held Rogue back Logan stalked over to the splattered remains of Mr. Sinister. There was something fishy about this whole set-up; Sinister had gone down too easy.

Crouching down by the shattered remains Logan noted that the pieces of Sinister's body had begun to congeal and hardened into chalky, crumbling lumps. Poking at the lumps with the tips of his claws Logan tried to pick up a scent. Sinister always smelled of acidic chemicals and burning metals to Logan's nose and while he could detect that scent in the air the flaking remains before him seemed almost odourless.

Footsteps clumped towards the remains and Logan looked up to see both Summers brothers, Betts, Rogue and a grim faced Jeannie stepping forward for a look.

'Sonofabitch,' Havok sucked in a breath and turned to Scott, 'Is he really dead or is this some huge mind-fuck? It was never this easy before.'

Cyclops cocked his head to the side, 'Wolverine?'

Logan shook his head, 'M' gut says this ain't the real Sinister; this whole thing stinks of a set up.'

Above their heads a series of concentrated lightning blasts blew about the mesh of cables keeping Gambit's body suspended above them. Archangel moved to take the body in his arms as Storm finished blowing apart the cables.

Phoenix turned away from watching that sad scene and focused on the revolting, ashy-grey remains at her feet. 'Sinister's brain is impossible to read, almost impossible to sense even, but when he's in front of me I can feel him like a huge cold sucking void.' She explained.

'Did you sense him here?' Cyclops asked her. She bit her lip.

'I sensed him at some point; in fact I think he's close by – but I'm almost certain this,' she waved a hand at the scattered pieces splattered over the cracked clock face, 'is nothing but a decoy.'

'What?' Rogue pushed forward, 'Ya mean that bastard's still alive? Where? Where the fuck is he? I'll kill him a hundred times if ah have ta.'

'Rogue,' Cyclops snapped as Warren's angelic shadow fell over them and he descended from the higher platform with Gambit's body in his arms like a true archangel back lit by pure white light. He landed with a snap and flutter of feathers expression grim. Storm landed a second or two after Warren her eyes white and unreadable.

'What do we do now, Slim?' Warren asked quietly, 'Bishop and Gambit's ex are still missing…but…' he trailed off glancing from the body in his arms to the tesseract portal still open like a tear in time and space level with the clock face floor.

Cyclops looked at the painfully glowing blue and white shimmering walls. He could taste static on the back of his tongue; static and ashes. He stared at the body in Warren's arms. The X-men were all looking at him for answers and leadership; a tension headache pinged to life behind Scott's left eye. Behind his visor Cyclops closed his eyes and steadied himself. When he spoke his voice was calm and controlled.

'Archangel, Psylocke, and Wolverine,' he looked at the three of them, 'use the tesseract and take Ga…' he stopped himself; now was not the time for codenames. '….Take _Remy's_ body back home. Let Beast know what's happening. The rest of us will go looking for Bishop and Belladonna.'

'And Sinister,' Rogue's voice was dangerous and brooked no opposition.

Cyclops looked at her tiredly and nodded, 'and Sinister.'

Warren turned towards the tesseract with Psylocke and Wolverine behind him. He started to step through the portal, Gambit's body in his arms. Phoenix's eyes widened, her green irises blazing with sudden gold, a raptor of fire in their depths. She threw out her hands to stop Warren from disappearing completely into the portal.

'No!'

With will power alone Jean Grey-Summers tore Gambit's body from Warren's arms and flung it across the chamber where it hit the base of the broken clock hands.

'Jean!' Cyclops' voice was not the only one raised in dismay but Jean ignored them all. A nimbus of fire enveloped her as she levitated a good foot of the floor, calling her power to her as she faced the body.

'Nice try Sinister.' The Phoenix hissed in all her glory, 'But we're not buying.'

The body of Remy LeBeau lifted its head, a pair of cold blood red eyes snapping open as a bloody diamond erupted to life in the centre of his bleach white forehead. The corpse skinned its lips back from razor teeth and the true Mr Sinister rose to his feet like liquid lightning to face the X-men for real.


	40. Chapter 40

**Chapter Thirty-Nine: Dissolution **

**The Face of Time**

The body of what the X-men had thought was their erstwhile comrade Gambit rippled and melted in on itself; limbs elongated, spine grew a little and the body gained a few inches of extra height. The chest grew wider and the torso bulked out a little. The pallid tone of dead flesh paled even further becoming an almost flaccid greyish white and within seconds it was Mr Sinister in flesh and spirit who faced the X-men.

'Foolish woman,' his voice was more sibilant and grating than it had ever sounded before and there were patches of oozing black all over his body, like burn marks. The blood stains that Wolverine had identified as Gambit's dripped off Sinister's unnatural flesh like splashes of paint; the deception laid bare for what it was.

'You know not what you do.' Sinister repeated ambiguously but made no move to attack.

Phoenix stared him down, 'Oh you're wrong there _Mister_ Sinister. I know exactly what I'm doing.' She smiled tightly, a surprisingly savage expression for the X-men's own self-proclaimed den mother, 'I know what you were trying to do as well – and it isn't going to work.'

_Sinister was trying to get us to take him to the mansion where he could take back the data Remy stole; disguising himself as Gambit's corpse was perfect camouflage. _

Even as she faced off against Sinister Jean swiftly explained the situation to her stunned and appalled teammates. Rogue and Storm's sudden anger felt like twin furnaces igniting behind her eyes but Jean kept her focus on Sinister.

'Where is the real Gambit?' she demanded for the team.

Sinister skinned his lips back from his teeth and it was only then that Jean noticed that part of his top lip was missing to begin with; in fact the black smears all over him were holes. Mr Sinister had finger sized holes dotting his entire body. Her stomach roiled in revulsion - the maniacal geneticist looked as if someone had tried to kill him inch by inch and pound of flesh by pound of flesh. She had only ever seen the monster in worse state after Scott had blasted him with a full force optic blast.

When the monster spoke he sounded almost tired – almost _human_. 'There is nothing you can do to me, X-men, which would induce me to aid you.'

'Wanna bet,' Rogue stepped forward her throaty southern accent almost completely sublimed by cold rage. Sinister merely stared at her; he was leaning against the central pillar of the clock mechanism and there was a hole in his lower leg that appeared to be negatively affecting his ability to weight bare.

'Kill me child, if you are able,' Sinister barely looked at Rogue as he spoke his eyes instead focusing on his special projects, Jean and Scott, who came to stand abreast with his wife.

'You can't win Sinister,' Cyclops placed a hand on his wife's shoulder, 'Take us to Gambit and you get to walk out of here.'

Behind his back Cyclops heard Storm suck in a sharp breath, almost a hiss, in shock and outrage but she was too disciplined, too self-controlled, to speak out in dissent before an enemy of Sinister's calibre.

For his part Mr. Sinister ignored the offer. He seemed to be staring right through the X-men for all the concern he showed. 'The data LeBeau stole is but a trifling thing; he lacks the scope of understanding.'

Sinister rose wearily to stand straight once more and actually stumbled as his damaged leg failed, 'I had hoped that the flesh of my flesh would be sufficient to invoke understanding with the right inducement, but the thief has ever been a fool.'

'Where is Gambit Sinister; tell us and this can end now.' Cyclops reached for the syringe in its case that Belladonna had given him and which he had attached to his utility belt.

The thought of finally ridding the world of Sinister for good was strangely frightening. What was better: to vanquish the monster and face a whole new world of unknown threats, or keep the devil they all knew alive where they could watch him? Was Sinister even a threat to them anymore; now that they allegedly had the means to kill him at anytime, and now that Gambit had so soundly defeated his plans, and exposed his secrets?

What would Charles want him to do, Cyclops wondered as he faced the creature who had hurt he and his family more completely than almost any other being in existence and realised that killing Sinister would bring him no resolution whatsoever.

Sinister's sudden laughter had a raw edge, not emotion, but a ragged quality due to extensive damage to his lungs and airways.

'It ends now Scott Summers, that is true, but not as you believe.'

Sinister lurched forward, dragging his leg. 'I offer you and your team no threat. I seek not to regain my research; what LeBeau stole is but the detritus of many lifetimes thought and toil distilled within my mind. McCoy may keep his stolen spoils and do with it what he will. The Garden is compromised and I suggest you all leave, as I intend to do, before the Witness is activated.'

'The Witness?' Rogue jerked on the spot the term striking warning bells in her mind even as she curled her fists and took a readying stance against Sinister's slow advance. Sinister flicked a contemptuous look towards her.

'Charles Xavier destroyed his mind with the fallacy of right and wrong, good and evil, and while I thought it impossible that one such as LeBeau should fall prey to such empty rhetoric, it would appear that Xavier's delusions have destroyed more than he can ever know.'

Sinister lurched forward once more in ungainly fashion intent on reaching the still open tesseract portal; Cyclops' hand moved defensively towards the syringe hanging from his belt and his fingers closed on empty air. The syringe case was gone.

'Do not move monster.' A voice commanded, hissing like a raging tempest.

* * *

**Central Core: Promontory Level **

'Step aside,' Bishop growled pressing the end of the plasma rifle more firmly into the Marauder's back, 'I will not warn you again.'

The female Marauder had already stepped away from the machine the two had strapped the unconscious Gambit into and Belladonna Boudreaux covered her efficiently with a standard issue semi-automatic.

'Go ahead and shoot X-man,' the Marauder Scalphunter told him without bothering to turn his head to look at Bishop, 'It's all the same to me; you fuck this up and we're all dead anyhow.'

Belladonna Boudreaux who, perhaps because she was human (albeit far from normal) and thus less familiar with the impressively bizarre and perilous situations X-men took in stride, had not been able to help but notice the fact that everything below the promontory walkway they were standing on had become a glowing, roiling, almost painfully bright sea of energy. She fancied that if a person could see inside the heart of a nuclear reactor it would look something like this. It also looked a bit like that old 'gator had, the one from Tante's outhouse, the one that Remy had blown to dust when he was sixteen.

It didn't take a genius or a spandex fetishist to realise this was a bad thing.

'What you mean?' she demanded in response to the dark man's laconic comment. Still it was the muscular woman with the lop-sided crew-cut who answered.

'What's up with you blondie? Can't you see this whole place is about to go supernova? Sleepin' beauty Cajun is the only one who can stop it before we're all atomised toast.'

Belladonna arched both brows and shot a look at her battered husband half manacled into the coffin-like machine. Belladonna had never seen Remy's powers at their most lethal, but she knew that they had to have been bad for Remy to submit, even for a short time, to a creature like the diamond headed bastard. She knew that deep down inside Remy had always feared himself far more than he had ever feared anything. Until now it had never occurred to her that he had reason to do so.

Still first things first, Belladonna snapped out a vicious high kick that caught the pit-bull faced older woman cleanly under the chin and knocked out for the count. The Marauder fell gracelessly to the ground and Belladonna dropped into a crouch before her body to check for weapons. She did not check to make sure the woman was still alive; she did not need to. Belladonna only killed when she meant to; she was no amateur. Pulling living-polymer fibre restraints (stolen from SHIELD by the Thieves Guild and stolen from them by Belle herself) from one of the attachments strapped to her belt Belle secured the woman's wrists and ankles before whispering in her ear:

'A word to de wise, no one who's ever called me "Blondie" has ever lived to tell o' it.'

She looked up to see that in the interim the large and taciturn X-man called Bishop, whom she remembered had been trying to kill Remy when she had first encountered the X-men, and whom her spies told her had some odd connection to her husband, had thrown the metal clad man up against the protective railing of the promontory walkway and shoved the end of his rifle into the man's throat. Belladonna looked the tall, large black man up and down with appreciation. She liked his style.

'Talk quickly,' the big man enunciated clearly for the benefit of his victim. Belle took the opportunity to sidle over to her faithless dog of a husband while the X-man beat their prey into submission.

'What do you want me to say, X-man? Arclight told you what was happening; use your damn eyes and see for yourself.'

The prey snapped and Belle glanced over just before she reached Remy. She gave the metal and black duster clad man an evaluating look. She recognised the dead steady look in his eyes untouched by external stimuli and in so doing recognised a fellow professional.

She smiled, 'You must be monsieur Grey Crow, oui?' she asked deviating from Remy's side to return to the railing. Belle's smile was snake thin, 'You be de one dat betrayed m' husband t' de Devil, non?' Idly she reached out and tapped the man on the end of the nose with her index finger. 'I'd kill you for dat, but I don' believe in mercy killin's.'

Smiling ambiguously Belle moved off once more. Belle had very little idea of what was truly going on here, and she cared even less. She had a job to do and a consignment to fulfil. Remy had placed his life in her hands; it was up to her whether to take it or force him to live it. She looked at the battered mess he was in and wondered at the depths of her own vindictiveness; death might very well be a mercy for her Remy-cher right now.

Mercy, clemency, and compassion were not virtues Belladonna had in very large supply however so Remy was bang out of luck there.

'And you're Belladonna Boudreaux,' the man, Grey Crow, voice surprised her, she wasn't used to her victims speaking back. Then again usually her victims never knew they were dead until they hit the ground either. 'He used to talk about you, mostly when he was drunk, kid never did completely get over his "belle bride".'

Belladonna turned around and faced the man who had craned his neck to the side to look at her even though the enormous Bishop had his gun pushed so far under his chin as to almost crush his throat.

'Kid never did have a good grasp on reality. He was still rambling on about buying his way out of his exile with the next big heist, or buying his way into a rival guild and going back for you, right up until he ended up on Essex's operating table.'

Belladonna Boudreaux was a bloody queen made from stone and cut glass. Whatever sentimentality had survived her childhood as her brother's 'best girl' had been crushed into powder on her wedding day, and further still on the day she had travelled to Westchester New York to bring her lost groom home so that they could save the clans together and force them to repeal his exile, only to find that husband in the arms of another woman.

Nevertheless Grey Crow's words, delivered without mockery, made an impact on the cold sharp wounds and crevices that made up the tapestry of the adult Belle's soul. It was something to know that faithless, womanising bastard, though he be, Remy had not forgotten her completely after all. Once upon a time she had been his bride, just as for a very short time before his rapier poked out of her brother's back, Remy had been her knight in armour.

'Thank you, Monsieur, for telling me dat.'

Without another word she nodded to Grey Crow and turned her back; a weaker woman and a weaker assassin might have tried to pretend that his words meant nothing but Belladonna was beyond such silliness. A good assassin must know her own weaknesses better than any enemy could; lest they be used against her. Belladonna Boudreaux knew precisely who her greatest weakness was. She focused on her husband. Almost absently she flicked off the safety on her gun and considered Remy's bloody visage musingly, her body covering her actions she lightly pressed the gun to his temple.

'What were you doing with LeBeau?'

Bishop growled like a timber wolf behind Belle's back, his words almost jarring, as she watched the minute twitches of her husband's eyelashes, clumped with blood, against his cheeks. She wondered what he dreamed of, or if he dreamed at all? But of course, Remy would dream: Remy spent an inordinate amount of his life pretending the world was something it was not. He dreamed with his eyes wide open and drifted through life lying to himself and everyone else. Belle's finger twitched just fractionally on the trigger.

Monsieur Grey Crow's voice was beginning to sound strained as his back bowed over the railings and his head was forced into an uncomfortable upward tilt as Bishop bore down on him with the gun as a prod, 'This machine…….Essex built it……it will grant the kid control of his full powers……can be used to make him…..suck back up the power he released through this place. Stop the meltdown.'

Belle reacted to these words by loosening her finger on the trigger of the gun. She frowned; she had no desire to be obliterated by her husband's out of control mutant powers. She could always shoot him afterwards, if she so chose.

'I do not believe you. You work for Sinister.' Despite his words something in Bishop's tone suggested otherwise. Belle wondered where the hesitation came from. Who cared who the killer worked for? Surely all that mattered was saving their own skins?

Grey Grew snorted, thoughts running parallel with Belladonna's, 'Fine then shot me and run like hell, because one way or the other this energy's got to go somewhere. Either this place is atoms or Remy takes it back.'

Belle glanced over her shoulder, 'Monsieur Crow makes a reasonable suggestion, mon cher,' she nodded to Bishop, 'if'n he be lyin' we kill him after. Where be de harm?'

'Why would you help Gambit, or the X-men?' Bishop demanded stubbornly even though there was something brewing behind his eyes. A tumult deep enough that even Belle, who was a near stranger, could see the big man's unease. He stepped back from Scalphunter allowing the other man to stand straight and not bent painfully backward over the railing.

The Native American killer met Bishop's eyes with a dead regard, 'The kid's easier to work with than Essex an' I figure helpin' the whitehat's increases mine an' Arc's chances o' livin' in the long run.'

To Belle, a creature of pragmatism, this answer was perfectly acceptable. To Bishop it was less so. Without a word he turned abruptly from Scalphunter and prowled on surprisingly silent feet across the walkway to the far wall at the other end of the walkway had begun to take on a faint fuchsia tint. He pressed his large palms against the wall and tasted the energy.

A moment later he withdrew both hands and turned around eyes large and rounded so that the whites were clearly visible all around. A look of abject horror painted his face.

'The Garden……..the Garden is dying…..'

* * *

**The Face of Time**

The booming echoes of thunder and lightning crackling like fireworks overhead caused Wolverine to stagger on his feet and shoot a very unhappy look at Storm as his senses rang from the overload. The other X-men jumped in surprise as well. The goddess regarded Sinister with eyes of marble white. In her elegant hand she held the pneumatic syringe like a dart, ready to be thrown.

'If Gambit is dead so too will you soon be,' she informed Sinister and no one could deny her intent. Cyclops stared at the severed belt pouch lying on the ground at Storm's feet; he had not even felt it as she had sliced the pouch from his belt and stolen the syringe away.

'Storm……this isn't the way.' Cyclops warned and was summarily ignored by the Goddess.

Sinister narrowed his eyes in nothing more than annoyance as he regarded Storm. He paid the syringe no mind at all, 'Are you really such fools?' he demanded. 'Look about you X-men, do you not see that I am no longer your greatest threat?'

With one hand, missing three fingers, Sinister gestured outward jerkily, like a wind-up toy running out of momentum, towards the deep thrumming walls of the shaft pulsing in deep indigo and blazing white.

Psylocke, who had remained quiet, standing near the walls of the shaft since Sinister's deception had been exposed, now addressed the X-men, 'There is still a residue presence of Gambit's thoughts in the power running through these walls. I don't know if he's still alive but his power is still responsible for all this.'

She too gestured not just at the walls of the shaft but at the buzzing cables and the pinkish glowing massive clock cogs beneath their feet. It was only then that it became apparent that the whole chamber was glowing like one of Gambit's cards. There was a palpable sense of destructive potential held back like the waters of a raging river by a dam of sticks and twigs.

'I have no desire to kill you X-men,' Sinister repeated, 'but we will all perish is LeBeau is not stopped. The Garden faces eradication and Scalphunter has betrayed me. You X-men cannot comprehend the devastation he will bring should he use the Witness Capsule!'

Storm still held the syringe, 'Once I was entrusted with the protection of the Morlocks and my dereliction of duty contributed to their deaths.' Ice and cyclones swirled in Storm's words, giving them a bite colder than arctic gales. 'Nevertheless I owe a debt of honour to avenge the fallen.' Her eyes narrowed, glowing with white light, and she hefted the syringe like a throwing dart, 'Give me one reason I should not end you here; fiend.'

'The wages of sin cannot be used as bounty for the righteous,' Sinister's voice was almost impossible to understand it was so mocking and vicious. His words maligned by a savage fury that was almost beyond comprehension. 'The Morlocks were genetic dross, ill-fit to live; their destruction was nothing less than natural selection. You would condemn yourself and countless others for their paltry memory, Windrider? Are you so petty to allow your shame to thus affect you, woman?'

The chamber exploded in a crescendo of nature's fury unleashed and a goddess scorned screamed her rage. The syringe flew through the air, guided by the hand of fate and fury.

'DIE!'

* * *

**Within the Witness Capsule**

_TICKTICKTICKTICKTICKTICK._

He could hear ticking; that was the first indication Gambit had that, once again, he was conscious. He didn't open his eyes however, some instinct for survival that had been dormant through most of his ordeal, warned him against doing so.

There was a gun barrel pressed against his head; he knew without doubt that that was what the cool metal indentation to his right temple was. He could smell synthetic honeysuckle, jasmine and tight leather and he knew that scent without the need for any other senses: Belle.

_TICKTICKTICKTICKTICKTICK._

He could still hear ticking; he just didn't know where it was coming from. It might have been nothing more than the beating of his heart in the cage of his chest. It might have been the echo of eternity. It might have been Belle's wristwatch. It didn't much matter one way or the other.

The ticking told its own tale; the same old story Remy had heard, staccato echo like an executioners drum, all his adult life. The message was a simple one: too late. It's too late for you. It was the melody of hell, the anthem of the damned; Remy's own personal theme tune.

_TICKTICKTICKTICKTICKTICK._

Snatches of conversation danced tantalisingly close to comprehension but when Remy tried to focus and make sense of it the words lost their meaning and floated away into the gaping black hole of concussion at the back of his skull.

'……..the Garden is dying…….in my time the Garden was the last remaining bastion of the past…..a source of invaluable information that saved millions of lives…….

_Bishop? _Recognition with a chaser of confusion brought him closer to the surface of awareness again. Carefully and slowly Remy eased back into the broken shell of his body once again.

_TICKTICKTICKTICKTICKTICK._

Bishop and Belle were here? What weird parallel universe had he fallen into that those two would be hanging together? Perhaps he was only dreaming? He tried to crack open his eyes but found that he couldn't; it felt like someone had coated each individual eyelash in his eyelids with adhesive. The barrel of the gun pushed a little harder against his temple.

'…….Remy-cher, can you hear me?'

_TICKTICKTICKTICKTICKTICK._

He could still hear ticking, only it seemed to him like time was slowing down, like a countdown, or merely as though there was no more time left to run with.

_Ticktickticktick………….tick……….tick………..tick………tick………._

Remy forced his eyes open so that he could face whatever hell was awaiting him.

* * *

**Central Core: Promontory Level**

'I t'ink he be wakin' up.'

Bishop blinked back into focus at Belle's words and his rifle was raised and pointed at Scalphunter before the Marauder could take a step towards LeBeau. As Belladonna stepped back from the machine Bishop could clearly see the ghost of a frown flit across Gambit's pallid face as his brows scrunched and his eyelids struggled to open.

Bishop strode forward, 'LeBeau?' His voice was harsh as a dog trainer barking out commands to misbehaving puppies. Instantly Gambit's unfocused red eyes blinked up at him blearily, 'Pup…..dat you?'

_Pup; come to kill me, blame me, set me free? _

As Bishop took those last steps towards Gambit it seemed that reality warped and twisted around him. He saw a raised dais hissing with pinkish energy and a throne that resembled an implement of torture more than a mark of status set upon it. An emaciated skeleton of a man sat askew upon that seat, his bony wrists shackled in place upon the arms; a prisoner of his own infirmity and raging powers. Half naked and draped in soiled rags the old man had smiled at him. There was nothing but sickness and insanity in those eyes.

_King of secrets, me, pup. _

The last time Bishop had ever seen the Witness it had been a shock. He had kept away for three years after his one year's enforced labour as payment for the Shard hologram had ended. He had vowed never to return. He liked to pretend it was because he was an officer of the XSE and duty bound to hunt down and execute foul creatures like the Witness. He liked to pretend that it did not hurt him to see the wreckage of a man the Witness had become.

The smile the bloody, hurting Gambit gave Bishop now, his lurid eyes bright with pain and relief, reminded Bishop painfully of the Witness' inane grin on that last day. _'Come to kill me, set me free? _

'LeBeau, you must control your powers. They are reaching critical mass.' He moved to release one of the shackles binding Gambit to this contraption but hesitated, letting his hands drop away. Gambit frowned fuzzily at him.

'Non……got to destroy dis place……can' let him get at it again.'

Bishop looked up and stared at Gambit, 'The Garden cannot be destroyed.'

'It evil pup; _He _made it.'

When Bishop was an up and coming XSE recruit one of his commanders discovered his connection to the Witness' organisation; Bishop was far from the first foundling child the Witness had saved from starvation, abandonment and death after all but most did not chose to betray their saviour by leaving the Witness flock. His commanding officer had suggested that if Bishop would give up his inside information on the Witness he would find his passage up the ranks of the XSE would be greatly accelerated. Bishop would be heralded as the one who made it possible to topple the great Witness: pariah of mutantkind and no longer needed in XSE society.

Bishop had not cared for promotion but he had thought long and hard about a world without the Witness; a world without illegal trade in illicit weapons from before the fall of the United States of America. He thought about ending the Witness' control of all non-government sponsored assassinations; the end of the illegal trade in outlawed substances. With the Witness capture and execution the XSE could finally dismantle the largest larceny and blackmarket trading ring known to man.

It would also mean that little children in the gutters would not even have the faint hope that a crooked old white man with demon eyes would come and snatch them off the streets, would feed them, clothe them, educate them, and give them a future. End the Witness and the poor would no longer have a source of medicines and pharmaceuticals they had no earthly means to pay for under the legal system; the many, many underground clinics saving hundreds of lives in deep secrecy would simply cease to be without the Witness' funding.

The last survivor of a dead era would be dust; his secrets lost forever. The Garden and all its treasures would fall into ruin and fade into obscurity, beyond even the reach of legend. It was a picture of a world that Bishop could not stomach. The world he lived in was no utopia and the devil offered the only salvation many hundreds of people human and mutant alike, could hope for.

Bishop had turned down the offer to be the one to destroy the Witness and watched other, less talented and less dedicated recruits surpass him in the ranks of the XSE, yet he had never regretted his decision. When there was no heaven Hell becomes a paradise in the wasteland.

In a time many years before Bishop would be born, a time when the world still just about worked and hope was more than a disease of the mad and the dying, Bishop realised that he was not the man he had always believed himself to be. He realised that what he thought he believed in was nothing more than a lie.

'If you destroy the Garden you will be condemning untold millions to death in my future.' Bishop told the confused and battered young man who would one day become all that was good and all that was rotten in mutantkind. The red eyes widened fractionally something like panic sliding behind those ruby and onyx orbs.

Scalphunter moved, 'The Cajun's got a direct link to the Garden, not just the data, but the engine that makes this place tick.' The marauder stepped up to stand by the machine and Belladonna moved back so she could train her gun on his back in case he tried anything funny. Scalphunter smacked a palm lightly over the shell of the device holding Gambit.

'Essex called this device the Witness Capsule; it was made for the kid. It creates a permanent bond between Remy and the Garden. They become one and the kid get's full control of his powers.'

Bishop stiffened as a surge of shock ran through him from head to toe, he stared at Scalphunter until the other man actually took a step back.

'What did you say?' He asked in a whisper, almost drowned out by the echo of a mad old white man laughing in his memory.

_Come to kill me, pup, come to set me free?_

* * *

**The Face of Time**

The world was bone white pain and flashing red luminance; lightning and fire rained from the sky and the very molecules in the air erupted in violence and fury.

For years to come the man called Scott Summers would try to piece together the sequence of events that followed. He would try to work out what he could have done differently and how he could have failed to see the danger.

Did Ororo fling the syringe, like a dart, through the air and then summon the sheet lightning as a distraction, or was it simultaneous. Did Rogue lunge forward at that exact instant due to some pre-planned signal, or was it merely opportunism? Had one of the telepath's known what Storm had planned – had any other member of the team seen Ororo pick his pocket and steal away the syringe?

Scott Summers would never gain his answers; he would never satisfactorily decide one way or the other quite what happened. All he knew was that the world was ripped to pieces in an instant.

Sinister, already grievously injured did not move fast enough to avoid the syringe which found a home right dead centre of his forehead, right into the eye of the red diamond throbbing dully in his dead white skin. The pneumatic plunger on the syringe did not release; the needle bounced and jumped but the liquid contents did not travel down the stem of the needle.

Sinister raised his hands to pull the syringe free and Rogue threw herself at him like a pile driver. Sinister's body was smashed into the central column of the chamber. He tried to throw Rogue from him but she was both too fast and too strong. Storm struck the column with lightning and Sinister screamed as the current ran through him to find grounding.

Rogue grabbed hold of the plunger on the syringe and slammed it down; she pushed until the needle was driven all the way to the hilt into Sinister's head and she continued to drive it into his head until she crushed the empty syringe completely.

Sinister had looked surprised as the syringe's secret content seeped into his cranium.

Rogue had leapt backwards, anticipating reprisal, as pieces of the shattered pneumatic syringe fell to the clock face floor. Sinister had dropped to his knees as another bolt of lightning slammed into his body. Metal screamed and clock cogs groaned as electricity joined with the pulsing currents of power already running through the giant clock. There was a tinkling sound as minute pressure fractures spread like winter's first frost across the clock face.

Sinister raised one hand up to his face, as he fell forward braced on one arm, 'What have you done to me?' his skin was glowing; glowing like one of Gambit's cards.

'Ya got what ya deserved monster,' Rogue spat at the fallen mastermind as the spider web of cracks spread out from the central column across the clock face; each crack was highlighted in glowing fuchsia like runnels of lava.

Sinister still looked surprised when a strange popping sound, like popcorn, began. The X-men stared as cracking and popping like a bowl of cereal Sinister began to dissolve. It started with the hand he held before his face: Pop, pop, hiss. Then his arm, then the left side of his head collapsed like an overlong cigarette ash.

'Oh my god,' at some point Jean had clutched hold of his hand and Scott held tight back. There was no thought of intervening and no intervention possible anyway.

Sinister, or what was left of him, fell sideways onto the breaking clock face. Crack, crack, pop. Glowing white and pink and blue at the edges and drifting away in eddies and motes of light and shadow, Mister Sinister simply ceased to be. Eroded and broken to pieces one molecule at a time.

Before his head disintegrated completely Sinister had still looked supremely surprised. His ashes and bone fragments fell like silt to rest on the clock face floor. It seemed as if the entire chamber took a deep breath and then, before any of the X-men could react, the great face of time exploded.

* * *

**Central Core: Promontory Level**

Bishop grabbed a fistful of the Marauder's coat lapels, 'Did you say Witness?'

Before the Marauder could so much as curl his lip in disdain Bishop threw Scalphunter across the chamber and stalked after him. The Marauder bounced painfully over the floor.

'What games are you playing?' he raised the rifle as Scalphunter picked himself up, wiping blood from his face where his chin had impacted painfully with the metal floor of the walkway.

'No games,' the mercenary spat, 'the kid's fucked one way or the other. Essex replaced the damaged brain tissue with re-grown cells; Remy can't handle that level of power. This machine gives him control and it stops him from blowing the place sky high. No muss, no fuss; what the fuck is wrong with you X-men that you can't see a win-win situation when it's right in front of your face?'

Bishop reached the retreating Marauder and slammed the butt of his plasma rifle into the side of the man's head even as he stamped down hard on the fingers of his gun hand. Scalphunter grunted but did not go down. Bishop shoved the large barrel of the gun into the man's face.

'Why call it "Witness"?'

Bishop's mind was in turmoil. When he had found himself trapped in the past he had taught himself to cope with the loss of all he had ever known and loved by convincing himself that his presence in the past would remake his own future into something better. He would save the X-men and reveal the traitor; he would make sure that the mistakes of the history books would not come to pass. He would make sure there never was a "Witness". It was only now he realised the flaw to that plan, for without the Witness there would be no Bishop.

'No,' the whisper was shallow but it travelled. LeBeau was trying to free himself from his restraints and not having much luck. He thrashed weakly like a fly trapped in amber as it congealed and hardened. Gambit craned his head forward and stared at Bishop, almost as if he could compel the other man with nothing more than the force of his sheer desperation.

'Non, Bishop mon ami, don' you believe what dey done tol' you; de knowledge o' de Garden ain't wort' de price. You don know what you doin'.'

Bishop stared at Gambit for a long moment.

'In my time you commanded the greatest underground empire there has ever been. The lives of millions rested in your hands. You pulled the strings of politicians and businessmen alike. You destroyed livelihoods and corrupted governments,' he blinked, 'you vaccinated children and the poor, you fed the hungry and you treated the sick without once asking for payment. You saved me and my sister when no one else would.'

Belladonna Boudreaux who had been quiet up until now stepped forward her eyes alight with a strange avaricious joy. 'Empires?' She breathed eyes darting from a pale and frantic Gambit and back to Bishop and a beatific smile spread slowly across her face, 'M' Remy-cher gon' grow up to rule de worl'?'

'No!'

Gambit pulled at the restraints and cried out in pain as he wrenched his broken arm and dislocated shoulder, he glared daggers at his estranged wife. 'Shut up Belle.'

Turning desperately to Bishop there was a sob in his voice, 'Pup you insane; de Garden needs endin'; you don' know what it's really for! Monsieur Bete got all de data: he save lives wit' it, you see. There no need for dis: let de Garden burn.'

Bishop nodded, 'Yes Beast will save lives in this time, but he will not be there to save me and my sister.' Bishop stepped away from the silent and watchful Scalphunter, 'Only the Witness was there to do that. It was you, LeBeau, who rescued my sister and I, not the X-men.'

'Fine den,' Gambit struggled, the fingers of his still usable hand flexing and curling into a claw as he fought with the restraints, 'Fine I promise dat in de future I come save you an' your sister: NOW LET ME OUT OF HERE!'

Bishop actually smiled, a strangely light and inappropriate expression, 'But how can I know that you will survive? Gambit of the X-men was nothing more than footnote in history. Perhaps you must become the Witness before you can save the lives you will save?'

Gambit blinked and stared, his face ashen. 'No, Bishop mon ami, you don wan' go down dat road. You s'posed to be changin' de future for de better, not makin' it happen jus' de same ole way!' he threw himself at the restraints once more only to contort in pain and fall back panting, cold sweat sliding down his face.

Bishop ignored him and turned to Scalphunter, 'What does the machine do?'

Scalphunter shrugged, 'I already told you what I know. Essex had a bunch of shit in the hard drive I removed, mental conditioning mostly, but I dumped it. Shouldn't do nothing more than re-arrange his mind so he can handle the effects of his powers.' Scalphunter glanced at Gambit and then beyond him to the humming walls, pulsing with power.

'I don't know how he's connected to the Garden; all I know is that the Garden ain't really active until Remy's in his full power. It's the reason Essex came up with the whole Black Womb Project: to build a mutant who could feed the garden.'

'No!' Gambit shook his head violently, smacking his skull against the back of the capsule, 'No not like dis; it not s'pose to end like dis.' Red eyes burned into Scalphunter, 'I fuckin' saved you! I let you live you fuckin' bastard!'

'Yeah,' Scalphunter agreed calmly shaking his head, 'I told you a hundred times kid, you're too stupid to survive in this business.' Scalphunter's eyes were bleak, 'You never learned that lesson. If you ain't gonna kill you're nothing but cannon fodder. Trusting people will always screw you over.'

Gambit stared at Scalphunter, his face seemed too long, too thin, too angular all of a sudden. The skin hanging from jagged bones, the eyes sunken and wild; for a moment it was the Witness' face Bishop saw. The red eyes closed and Gambit seemed to cave in on himself.

'Non, mon dieu, merci dieu, not dis, not dis.' Gambit subsided sagging into the restraints.

'Look, shoot me if you want X-man, I really couldn't care less. I don't want to see the Cajun dead, and I don't want him turning New Mexico into a smoking wasteland either, that's why I activated the machine.' Scalphunter said disinterestedly as he walked past Belladonna to pick up the unconscious Arclight.

'I'm not about to spend the rest of my life in the slammer either, so if you ain't going to kill me, I'm takin' Arc and leaving while I still can.'

Hefting Arclight in his arms Scalphunter turned to face Bishop once again and issued his challenge, 'You going to stop me, or you going to do what needs doing, X-man?'

Bishop turned to face LeBeau. Gambit stared back at him, eyes wide.

'Mon ami, please, don' do dis.'

Bishop closed his eyes and clenched his fists. He had sworn an oath on his life that he would do whatever was necessary to make a better world for his tomorrow. He had sworn that he would stop the abuses of his time. He would save the X-men. He would save _his_ world.

He just hadn't realised that to do that he would have to destroy a man he had come to see as a friend.


	41. Chapter 41

_A/N: umm, an apology to reviewers, possibly some of you will not have received a reply from me for your last review while others of you might have gotten more than one, you can decide for yourselves whose worse off, all I'll say is I had a bit of a dodgy brain moment and became befuddled while trying to answer reviews forgetting who I'd answered and who I hadn't. Sorry everyone!_

**Chapter Forty: Conviction**

**The Shaft of the Face of Time**

Some people go through their entire lives without ever experiencing moments like these; moments of pure, blinding clarity wherein the mirror darkly clears and you see your whole life spread out like a banquet upon a table or a cadaver stretched over the autopsy slab. You can see every bad decision, every lost opportunity, every moment of selfishness and stupidity and every moment when you did something and it was good and right and perfect. It's like time stands still and everything is caught in an existential freeze frame. You see your whole life and, God damn it, for the first time ever it actually makes sense.

That moment is beautiful, wondrous and terrifying - and has the power to set you free.

Rogue was having one of those epiphanies as huge shards of super-charged glass fell past her face crashing down into the echoing darkness, and a stinging static heat tried to sear her bones to dust. All she could see was a kaleidoscope of colour and motion behind her closed eyelids. She spun in circles, no up and no down, and was deafened by the roar of the explosion.

Yet, despite all that, despite the chaos unleashed all around her, there was something in Rogue that was stronger than the wild fire madness of this destruction. Blinded by the light she nevertheless reached out and caught hold of the free falling Wolverine flying them both out of the way of falling glass blades sharp as guillotines and clock cogs the size of small trucks which sent pin-wheeling neon sparks a hundred feet up in the air as they toppled.

'Hold tight, Wolvie, ah got ya.'

'Never doubted it, darlin',' Wolverine, gruff, burned and sliced to ribbons was nevertheless unfazed as the great clock blew to pieces and the force of the explosion roared upward through the shaft like a bullet launched from the chamber of a gun.

It was impossible to chart a course but somehow Rogue navigated the insanity all the same. Her passage was erratic, filled with stops and starts, retreats and sudden leaps forward but it was progress all the same. Her momentum and her determination carried her up and away from the flames and the silent fire destruction. In a way her flight was a metaphor but one that would go unrecognised for the moment.

A mental touch, like a tap on the shoulder, and Rogue was diving downward, Wolverine clinging to her back as she smashed through a cog headed straight for the twenty foot sheet of glass clock face that floated in space, cocooned in an electromagnetic force bubble and held aloft by Phoenix.

'We gotta keep going up,' Rogue shouted even though the white noise of the biokinetic explosion drowned out sound altogether. Without waiting for orders or permission she snatched Cyclops under the arms and hauled him upwards, clutching him around the chest as she rocketed higher and higher. Wolverine started chuckling, a savage primal sound, and Rogue felt herself grinning even in the face of the maelstrom.

Behind her she knew that Warren bore Jean in his arms like she carried Cyclops and that Betsy had already shadow phased to safety. Storm twisted and dived around falling debris as only a windrider could and Polaris carried Havok ensconced in a ball of magnetic energy. They were all with her; all of them focused on the light at the end of the tunnel.

Above her, glowing like a single winking red eye, banked fire and fury dancing in the air, was the way out. She could feel the beating heart of this strange place, all static charge and tingling heat and knew, just knew, that the X-men was close. Where there were explosions there too would be Remy.

'Wahoo!'

As battle cries go it lacked gravitas, but at that moment, as time shattered below them falling to the depths of the Earth, Rogue couldn't care less.

* * *

**Witness Capsule**

Some people go through their entire lives without experiencing moments like these; moments of pure, blinding clarity where the mirror darkly clears and you see your whole life spread out like a banquet upon a table or a cadaver stretched over the autopsy slab. You can see every bad decision, every lost opportunity, every moment of selfishness and stupidity and every moment when you did something and it was good and right and perfect. It's like time stands still and everything is caught in an existential freeze frame. You see your whole life and, God damn it, for the first time ever it actually makes sense.

That moment is beautiful, wondrous and terrifying - and then, suddenly, time starts rolling on again and you just have to stand there and watch as your life falls over that big old cliff and crashes, burning, to the ground.

Remy Etienne LeBeau had already had more than his fair share of moments like that, and here now, was another one. The metaphorical rug had been pulled out from under him and he was fighting the undertow that wanted to rob him of everything he'd fought so damned hard for.

'Bishop, don' do dis.'

In shackles, hurting, on the cusp of victory and poised above the jaws of defeat Remy stared at a man he always suspected might wish him ill, but whom he had hoped would at least give him a chance to defend himself. Bishop looked like a man on a mission; a man who has had the shroud pulled from his eyes and can see the purpose of his life now laid bare.

'You cannot destroy the Garden; it is too important to my future.' Bishop told him in a voice that brooked no argument.

'Non,' Remy didn't really know what was happening, except that the look of conviction in Bishop's eyes scared him more than anything else he had been through. Tyrants and saints had eyes like Bishop's and Remy didn't have the greatest track record with either of those. 'Essex made dis, it ain't good, homme. Let it burn. Sil vous plait; let it burn an' die.'

Bishop wasn't listening. Behind him Remy could see Scalphunter watching with opaque eyes, Arclight limp in his arms. Belle stood by and watched it all with thoughtful eyes. Remy did not know what was happening. How could he lose now, when everything was already won? How could this be happening, whatever _this _was?

He could fell the power loosed through the Garden; he could hear the solid wave of static silence that would wash away the stain Sinister had left on the landscape forever. His heart jumped with the rythym of the building explosion.

'De Garden's gon go boom; I gave up ev'ryt'ing for dis. I'm gon destroy Essex de only way dat counts.'

Bishop stared right through him as he stepped up to the contraption Remy was stuck in and examined the controls. Bishop was a soldier and a zealot. He knew how to believe in something so much that the rest of the world ceased to exist except as a means to further his conviction. Remy suspected that he, at least as a fellow human being, had ceased to exist to Bishop as well.

He wondered how he could have played his hand to the bone, and still screwed up. He hadn't ever thought Bishop would be the one to seize the pot; he'd never bothered to deal the pup into the game to begin with. The realisation of just how badly he'd miscalculated made him feel sick to his stomach.

He'd played this game so well, dealt the cards just right, but even when you deal the cards you can't control the way the players play them. It was all a gamble, it always had been, and now Bishop, who had never had a stake in this in the first place, had come and knocked down his house of cards. Sooner or later every player gets played.

He didn't wait for the other man to confirm his suspicion. Sweat broke out on his top lip as the drugs wore off and the pain clawed at his tired nerves. Desperately he tried to think of an angle he could use against Bishop.

'De X-men be here too, non?' Remy asked intently. Eventually Bishop was just going to stop talking completely. He had to keep him talking or he was lost.

'Yes, Cyclops has brought a team to retrieve you.'

Remy thought swiftly. Thought about what Scottie would do, whom he would bring. No way would he come here without a telepath, and chances were good it would be his wife. Remy had a healthy, if wary, respect for Jeannie's skills. For the first time ever Remy found himself grateful for nosey telepaths. He licked his lips nervously, tasting blood and cold sweat.

'If'n I scream real loudly in my head, Jeanne or Betsy gon hear me.' Remy pointed out softly, 'Mon Capitan woul' agree wit' me; he'd let dis place blow.'

Bishop nodded but spoke with supreme confidence, 'He would, but you will not call them.'

A flare of rage zinged through Remy's battered body. Fury and bitterness tasting like ashes on the wind choked him. Mon dieu, he hated when people did this. There was always someone who claimed to know Remy better than he knew himself. Scalphunter, Essex, Belle, Stormy, Rogue, and now Bishop; hell even his Pere and frère had played this card against him in years gone by. They all had the same, tired old story about doing the "right thing". Every single one of them was a liar and thief, wanting another piece of him.

'Whatever you t'ink you doin' pup, it ain't wort' it. You bein' played. No good ever gon come o' anyt'ing Essex built.'

Remy pointed out sagging into the restraints and retreating into the familiar pain of his brutalised body. He could see the walls of the chamber glowing pink. If he could just keep Bishop talking a little longer it would be okay. The Garden was getting close to critical mass. He flicked his eyes around the metal coffin he was stuck in. Desperate he tried a different yet another tact.

'You trustin' Scalphunter, homme, you trustin' a _Marauder_.'

'No,' Bishop said still in that hated calm and steady baritone, 'I am trusting you.'

A snarl and a spasm of fury ignited through Remy's blood stream. Those words were a touch paper and his soul the explosive.

'_Fuck you_.' He spat. He could almost accept that Bishop was going to screw him over; it was foolishness on his part to think Bishop had changed his opinion just because Remy was innocent of everything Bishop had ever accused him of. Still he hated the man then and there for those words.

I. Trust. You: The most hated words in any lexicon Remy had ever heard; worse than all the accusations he'd ever had thrown his way.

'You got no right to do dis to me.'

Red and black spots danced before Remy's eyes and he jerked against his restraints. Had he had the energy at that moment Bishop would have been ionised dust; blown to smithereens in the face of his outrage. 'No, fuck you, I ain't gon be used like dis. Let me go.'

Bishop stepped back from the capsule as Remy struggled trying to twist at the spine and ignore the jarring pain in his dislocated shoulder as he began the process of wriggling out of his restraints. He could do this; he could get out of any chains. He'd been pushing back the pain for hours, why was it so hard to do it now? Fuck, but he could barely even feel his fingers. His head hurt, his body hurt, his soul hurt. He couldn't make his limbs obey. He couldn't get free.

Bishop slammed shut the transparent door of the capsule; sealing him in. The sound of his rasping breathing was incredibly loud.

'No,' howling like a dog Remy struggled again. 'Let me go. Let me the fuck go.'

He battered at the door with his one good leg until the reverberations from the blows numbed his foot and deadened the nerve endings up to his knee. He wrenched muscles up and down his neck and upper back as he jerked his head and bowed his spine trying to twist free; trying to build up enough kinetic energy to charge something. His efforts left him lightheaded and panting with pain. He let his head drop back against the curved back of the capsule and tried to suck in enough oxygen to start fighting all over again.

* * *

**The Garden Complex**

'X-men stay together,' Cyclops throat was hoarse from shouting and still he suspected that none of the rest of the team could hear him. Pulsing, striating brilliance flooded his brain and the filter of his visor offered no protection; all he could see was a coruscating mass of blue white heat and flares of dragon's blood crimson and deepest indigo.

'Phoenix we need a TK shield now. Polaris see if your powers can augment the shield. Rogue stay close, we might need your strength for the larger debris.'

There were no explosions; Gambit's power just ate the walls, the floor, even the oxygen in the air. The X-men ran through the middle of a nuclear reaction in slow motion. There was no heat but static burned their lungs and made breathing hard. It was hard to tell where they ran or where they were as walls fell to motes and sparks of energy and the floor melted away to atoms.

The Garden was dissolving just like Sinister had; washed away in pure energy. If Cyclops hadn't been stuck in the middle of it all he might have thought the whole thing beautiful.

'Goddess the rose garden,' Storm's exclamation heralded the X-men's exit from the warren of collapsing, eroding passageways beyond the Black Womb Laboratory doors. Taking to the air (while there was still air) Storm rose up and away from the glowing veldt of black soil that now resembled a rippling ocean of light and friction. The skeletal tower broken across the floor of the chamber was black as coal, like a broke back alligator in a river of energy.

'Slim we have to get out of here,' Archangel's words were clipped and tense. The feathers of his partially unfurled wings shivered as his shoulders twitched with the painful bite of static charge that leapt from the glowing air to his skin like falling ashes. It felt like that static wanted to permeate his very being and eat him, one molecule at a time.

Psylocke nodded, 'I cannot sense Gambit's presence, he could be anywhere, or already dead. If we stay here we'll be killed in the meltdown.'

'We can't leave Remy,' Rogue wheeled on the pair, furious.

'We can't stay here darlin',' Wolverine weighed in gruff and straight shooting. 'The place is going to blow.' He tapped his nose, 'The nose don't lie.'

He extended his bone claws and looked at them. Static sparks of kinetic energy ran up and down their length; ignited by the kinetic action of extending the claws in the first place. 'I ain't got a problem with stayin' if we knew where Gumbo was,' he shook his shaggy head, expression not sad or worried just tired, terribly tired, 'but we don't, an' there ain't no point riskin' all our lives on a wild goose chase.'

'Wolvie ya can't mean that.'

Rogue stared at him and the old Canuck shrugged, 'Life sucks, darlin'. Gumbo's made his choices. He knew what the stakes were an' he still sat down at the table. Think we got t' respect the man's wishes an' get while we still can.'

'What about Belladonna and Bishop?' Phoenix asked. Her face was pale and grim and her eyes tracked the shimmering veins of power and light that tracked over the still remaining ceiling and walls of the rose chamber. Perspiration touched her brow as she concentrated on keeping the X-men cocooned in a light telekinetic shield. Beyond the shield she could feel the all encompassing blanketing static of Gambit's powers. She could feel that power eating away at the oxygen in the chamber.

Cyclops stared up at the hole the X-men had blown in the ceiling of the rose garden; the hole that could lead them up and out of the Garden, where they might have a chance of getting away before the meltdown.

'Can you sense any of them?' He asked either of the telepaths.

Phoenix and Psylocke shook their heads. Cyclops closed his eyes behind his visor; there was a subliminal hiss, like the insidious dry rattle of a rattlesnake. He could feel a tingling heat under the soles of his feet and looked down to see his boots were glowing. He sucked in a sharp breath as he realised that standing still each of the X-men were being colonised by Gambit's creeping charge.

'There's no choice,' he snapped gesturing for either Phoenix or Polaris to throw more strength into the protective shield around them, 'We can't stay here.' He glanced up at the hole in the ceiling, 'We might be able to sense Bishop and Belladonna from the upper floors.'

'But…' Rogue began and Cyclops wheeled on her.

'That's an order Rogue,' he snapped, 'Sinister's dead and with him any chance of stopping this madness. Now move!'

* * *

**Witness Capsule**

Bishop stood before him, image distorted and blurry through the semi transparent door of the capsule.

'Know that I understand, LeBeau. I understand now why it is that I came to your time. I know now what my purpose is and while it does not please me I know that I must do this.'

Remy curled his lip, 'Save it homme. I don' believe a word.'

Bishop accepted this calmly. 'I don't expect you to, LeBeau, but this I must do. The Witness must be.'

Remy didn't really understand what Bishop said and it didn't matter. He threw his bitterness in the big man's face.

'You ain't no X-man homme.' He spat, his words as useless as the proverbial sticks and stones that never really did break bones. Still he tried all the same; pride is always the last to die. 'You no better den Magneto, killin' for his better worl', de professeur be ashamed o' you.'

'I know,' Bishop agreed as the angry words bounced off him not once disturbing the sublime calm in his eyes, 'I was not raised by an X-man. I was raised by you. I was raised to survive in a world that you cannot yet imagine. I was raised to understand that heaven is only for the dead and the devil you know is the only one you can trust.'

Bishop's brown eyes were very deep and very dark and lit with a strange light that was almost mania. Remy had seen it before, that light of near desperate madness. Bishop was a fanatic; a man who believed in something he didn't understand because to believe was to hold a candle to the darkness. Remy, who held his own candle in the dark, and knew his own desperate hopes, had always felt kindred with the big man because of that shared terror: the terror of the hopeless who believe in a better tomorrow because they have to.

Any sense of solidarity Remy had for Bishop died a quick death here and now however. Remy was a lot of things and most of them were bad, but he would never do this to a friend.

'You a fool pup,' Remy closed his eyes, he didn't want to look anymore but a moment later he opened his eyes and tried to force Bishop to see, really see, the truth of the choice he was making, 'You ain't doin' dis to save de future, you ain't even doin' dis to save _today_. Dis ain't 'bout de Garden. You doin dis because you a coward - a scared chile, afraid o' bein' alone.'

A muscle in Bishop's clenched jaw twitched and even through the blurry glass Remy could see his barb had hit home.

'A coward?' The big man asked and there was a reflective quality to his words but no anger. Remy knew he had lost in that moment. 'Yes, I suppose I am.' Bishop agreed.

'I am afraid every day; afraid that the world I knew is becoming a reality. Then I fear that I will never know my world again. I am a stranger in a strange land and everyday it grows stranger. I live, day in and day out in the presence of ghosts and myths, and every day I see the flaws in my childhood heroes laid bare.'

Bishop raised a clenched fist and lightly pounded the outer shell of the capsule without seeming to realise what he was doing, 'My heroes are weak and petty, they are vain and disorganised, and force me to see, everyday, exactly why the X-men failed, exactly why their dream was nothing more than cold rhetoric in the age I knew.'

An ugly frown twisted Bishop's face and bitter rage burned behind his eyes; he was like a child who discovers that Santa Claus was really created by Coca Cola and his parents are idiots like everyone else on the planet.

'I have watched them, LeBeau. The Professor fell to his own hubris; McCoy cannot stop a virus from killing thousands. Cyclops is only a man. These people were my idols; I believed in them with all my heart and soul, but they are no better than I.'

Bishop slashed a large fist across the air before slamming his fist against the capsule again. The vibrations of the blow reverberated through the hollow shell and rattled Remy's broken bones. Bishop's eyes were very wide and wild. 'These people would never survive the wars I weathered as a child. My heroes_ fail_ me.'

'So?' Remy stared at Bishop and almost laughed, 'De worl' ain't a nice place, homme.' He wondered how a soldier could have missed that prosaically obvious fact. 'De X-men ain't gods, an' I don' reckon de ever claimed to be. What dat got to do wit' anyt'ing?'

Bishop's face contorted as if the question confused him, 'Where the X-men failed the Witness endured.'

Remy almost smiled. He knew all about self-serving logic; he was a master of the art of self-delusion after all. Still all he could do was watch Bishop tiredly.

'So de Witness got lucky, dat ain't no reason to do dis now. You don' know what de future will be, mebbe none o' de shit you went through gon happen, oui?'

'Yes,' Bishop nodded, head bobbing almost frantically, 'the future could be worse than I remember.'

Remy did laugh then. 'Ah oui, lookit over dere chicken little,' he crowed thoroughly sickened, 'de sky is fallin'.' He curled his lip and met Bishop's wide eyes.

'Pup, you an idiot, an' dere ain't no way I done raised you, because even I ain't dat damn fool crazy to fill y' head wit' shit like dis.'

Bishop blinked and then frowned, almost comically perplexed, 'LeBeau…..'

'Non,' Remy cut him off. It was hot in this Perspex tomb and he wasn't sure how much air he had left, 'Non, t'ink I had enough o' listenin' t' egotists an' nut jobs for one life time. Cut de bull, homme, an let me outta here.'

'You do not understand,' Bishop smacked a fist a little harder against the shimmery, smeary surface of the capsule. The vibrations of the blow flowed through the metal and futuristic polymer framework and Remy gritted his teeth, 'You do not understand, the Garden……in my future…..'

Remy laughed again, even though the blood roared in his ears and his throat felt raw and parched. He threw his head back and laughed; laughed at life and death and all the nasty, vicious painful crap that happened in-between. He laughed for a long time before he stared Bishop in the eye one last time.

His smile became cold and hard and cruel, 'Do what you wan', Bishop. Can' stop you, won' stop you. But know dis, if'n I die today or live for another hundred years, I ain't never gon forgive you – an' I won' save you.'

Bishop rocked back on his heels, a whole step back from the capsule. His eyes widened and his mouth opened but no sound escaped. He stared at Remy and Remy smiled back. He nodded calmly as realisation spread over Bishop's time worn face.

'When de time comes, pup, I'm gon walk on by an' let you die. Your future is already ruined. I'll bare _witness _to dat.'

Bishop's whole body shook, almost convulsing in shock. His face contorted into a look of almost bovine panic and confusion before he threw his head back and roared. One large hand lashed out and wrenched the lever on the control panel for the capsule.

The Witness chamber activated.

* * *

**Almogordo Complex**

Some people go through their entire lives without experiencing moments like these; moments of pure, blinding clarity where the mirror darkly clears and you see your whole life spread out like a banquet upon a table or a cadaver stretched over the autopsy slab. You can see every bad decision, every lost opportunity, every moment of selfishness and stupidity and every moment when you did something and it was good and right and perfect. It's like time stands still and everything is caught in an existential freeze frame. You see your whole life and, God damn it, for the first time ever it actually makes sense.

Ororo Munroe did not regret killing Sinister. She felt no qualms of guilt for taking a life, for she did not believe that Sinister had ever been more than a parasite. She had been a goddess once; she had held sway over life and death, draught and famine, bountiful harvest and verdant plains. She had been ruler of the Morlocks once also and it was her right to claim vengeance.

An eye for an eye; ignorance had never been a good defence.

She looked down through the hole in the floor and stared into the glowing destruction of Sinister's subterranean demesne. Staring into the maelstrom she felt only satisfaction. Evil should be rooted out and destroyed utterly. She tried to feel something for Remy, whom she did not doubt was still below, but found that she could not.

Ignorance was no excuse. She could accept that he had no knowledge of the horror he unleashed. She did not believe that the X-men had right to judge or condemn him, but Ororo also knew that forgiveness was its own curse. She could forgive him his stupidity, just as she had come to terms with her own negligence towards the Morlocks, her own failure to protect them. She could accept, she could recognise, that Remy had been a toil and not a true participant, but she could not forget his lies and omissions, his deceptions and falsehoods. He had kept the truth from her because he knew it would hurt her; their entire friendship was built on a false pretence ever after.

He would never be her friend again. It was too much to bear and for that reason her heart was lead in her chest as she stared down below at a destruction that was as beautiful as it was total.

Remy would die with Sinister and Sinister's Garden. It was fitting retribution and Ororo knew this, she believed this. Someone had to pay for the massacre; too many lives had been destroyed and forever tainted. Remy could not be allowed to go unpunished even if no X-man had the right to stand in judgement of him.

Sacrifice must be made and the scales balanced.

Ororo agreed with Remy's sacrifice; the Morlocks would accept no other restitution and Remy had to know that. Ororo could forgive a martyr, but she did not think she could look Gambit in his eyes and ever again call him "friend" should he live. His death would save them both the pain of severance. His death would save what was left of the love she bore him.

Crouched above the static lake below her, a single tear seeped free of the goddess' closed eyes. It fell into the river of energy and was lost immediately; devoured by the cleansing heat.

'Storm over here.'

Cyclops voice snapped with tension. The once Goddess rose to her feet and turned away. She did not look back and her eyes were dry as she joined the rest of the X-men. Tomorrow would come sorrow, repentance and regret. Today all there was within her was rage.

Let it all burn to dust and ashes and let my pain and guilt go with it; she beseeched the Bright Lady in silent prayer.

Let him die, so that I may forgive him.

* * *

**Critical Mass**

The Witness Chamber activated.

He could see it all. The whole world was a wash of shifting colours, white and hot pink, vivid black shadow and shimmering reds. He could feel the ebb and flow of movement and activity all around him. It was a seething tide of potential; a swirling mass of energy just waiting to be pushed just that fraction of an itch more and then - _boom. _It would blow in a crescendo of actualised possibility.

He could make it happen; the catalyst at the very centre of it all. He had created all the links in the chain reaction. He could feel them brushing against his mind; so many possibilities, so many outcomes and consequences. Remy LeBeau could see them all playing out in his mind and the view enticed and dazzled in equal measure.

He could feel the press of time; he could weigh the roll of the ages like dice in the palms of his hands. Back and forth and back again; time was not a river, it was shuffled deck of cards. One moment to another; one suit laid out upon the other; the beginning and the end, the betwixt and between, all of it, there at once and all the same.

More than the alpha and the omega, more than the-be-all and the-end-all, he was there in the moment. He was the pivot and the lynch pin, the foundation stone and the fifth column. He was the catalyst and the result all at once.

He could watch the cards fall and know how the game would be won and lost. He could see tomorrow's defeats in the victories of today. He could hear the echo of yesteryear in the whispers of the years to come. It was all a gamble and the rules were simple.

Play the hand you're dealt and die in the end.

It was atomic poker; or cosmic chess. He could anticipate every move in the game before it was made. He knew exactly where to place the pawns to get the best results; he knew how to hold his bluff and up the ante.

He was at the very centre of a maelstrom of possibility; it felt like he had his finger on the pulse of time itself. He could make it run backward if he wanted. He could make it end also.

It felt like he could do anything – make anything happen – if he just let go.

In the heart of the void, in the thick of the moment, in the time before the action or reaction, Remy LeBeau was king. The prince of thieves, the lord of lies, the king of secrets; he was witness to time itself. Everything was known, everything had been done, all the battles won and lost.

He saw the Garden as it was meant to be. Sinister's very own Pandora's Box; a trap for a madman; every answer already there to be found, rendering experimentation pointless when time was nothing more than a deck to be shuffled by the Black Womb son.

Truly, Sinister had been a genius; with the Garden and Remy in hand he would have been unbeatable, infallible; he would have known exactly what the future of mutantkind would be by asking a simple question.

Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all? Pick a card, any card, life was a gamble after all and the rules were simple. Roll the die, spin the wheel, try your luck and play the odds.

The cards will fall as they may and the house always wins. Fate and destiny were for the blind and the lazy; the Witness saw the multitudes. He saw the will-bes, the maybes, the might-have-beens. He saw the possible and the impossible and the worlds of lost opportunities. He saw the nothing before the everything.

He could hear the ticking as time swallowed worlds of choices not made and lifetimes of roads not taken. In the centre of it all, in the space of an eyeblink, Remy witnessed entire realities rise and fall and rise anew. Back and forth and round and round, every possible action and its infinite reactions danced before his eyes. It was endless; a panorama of infinity and the Garden was there, greedy and hollow, to swallow it all. The Garden existed to code and quantify the unfathomable and render choice obsolete; a bankrupt soul for a monstrous gift.

The Witness and the Garden were one; a twisted whole filled with everything and nothing all at once.

A spider-web of light and friction and a red glowing centre became his eventual focus. A choice he had made when he still had choices; a sacrifice to be redeemed. He could taste the possibility of destruction. All he needed to do was reach out and nudge that burning knot of power. He could make it all disappear; he could wipe the Garden from existence and swallow existence whole.

It might even be fun to do it.

* * *

**Almogordo Complex**

'What the hell is happening?' Archangel ducked and jerked away from one of the walls as white blue light hissed over the concrete and the wall dissolved. There was a burning sensation in his wings and he jerked around and flared out his wings to see that his pin feathers were scalding pink and burning. 'Christ almighty!'

'Jean!' Cyclops shouted as he tore off one of his boots that was blazing fuchsia heat. He threw the boot across the corridor and it popped in a shower of cotton candy pink sparks before it reached the apex of the throw. Wolverine snarled and rolled his shoulders, biokinetic energy crackled in his hair and the scent of burning filled all their nostrils.

Phoenix stood in the centre of the corridor her arms out at her sides, palms up against the throbbing walls of the corridor. Her own power flickered around her body, dancing like liquid flame and heat haze. Her eyes were closed as she concentrated.

'I'm doing the best I can.' Her voice had a breathy quality to it, brusque but also distracted, 'I'm trying to stop the oxygen from charging in the air and keep the entire ground floor of th complex from collapsing molecule by molecule and Gambit's power is fighting me every step of the way.'

'Why is this happening?' Rogue demanded raising her own gloved hands so that she could watch the kid skin gloves dissolve around her fingers; it tickled like a static electric shock.

Psylocke was crouched down in a fighter's low stance, the tattoo across her face dark and red as sweat beaded on her top lip. 'Someone's coming.'

Down the corridor flares of silent energy, like the fingers of energy from a solar firestorm, lashed out from one wall to the other and through the stinging dust two figures staggered forward.

'Belle,' Rogue grabbed the human woman as she collapsed, skin pink and raw and hair singed, clothes in patches. 'Where ya been gal; where's Remy?'

Scalphunter stumbled forward also, almost dropping Arclight as he staggered against a glowing wall and cried out as the charge jumped to him, burning through his arm. He swore savagely and Arclight fell from his suddenly useless arm. Wolverine lunged forward and shoved his claws under the Marauder's throat.

'Start talkin' bub.' He growled but it was Belladonna who answered.

'…….I din't know……' Belle coughed and choked eyes wide and scared as she grabbed at Rogue, who pulled her hands free to avoid accidental flesh contact. 'He said dat m' Remy-cher gon rule an empire one day…….but dis….' The blonde woman stopped short eyes staring at the walls and the super nova brilliance all around, 'Bishop….He done dis, he done dis to m' Remy-cher.'

'Done what? Where are they? Talk sense gal.' Rogue wanted to shake the woman but she did not dare. Belle dragged herself to her feet and pulled free of Rogue. 'We have to run; dere no hope for it now. Remy, he be fixin' t' pop. Dis whole place is gon go.'

'What are ya…..?' Rogue lunged for Belladonna even with bare hands but the assassin slithered out of reach and Scalphunter spoke before she could try again.

'The Witness chamber's active,' the marauder snapped. 'Essex's toy to control the kid; it's supposed to stop this from happening,' he waved his good hand at the glowing walls and pulsing floor, 'But the powers too great an' the kid's fightin' it.' Scalphunter glared down at Wolverine, 'Kill me if you want, runt, it doesn't matter to me. If the Garden blows none of us are living through it.'

Psylocke hissed, staggering up from her self-contained crouch and swaying on her feet. Warren reached out to steady her and they both shuddered as a pulse of super charged kinetic energy zinged from his hand to her body.

'I can feel it; oh God it hurts.' Her nose began to bleed and her eyelids shuddered.

'So can I,' Phoenix kept her eyes closed even as a thick trail of blood ran down her mouth and chin from her nose. 'It's destroying him. It's too much for any one person to take. His mind can't take it and it's killing him.'

Rogue seized Belladonna by the arms and drove her backwards into the wall, not caring when fuchsia fire seeped into every individual strand of her blonde hair. 'Tell me how ta get ta Remy or ah'm gonna hold ya here til ya burn.'

Belladonna wordlessly held up one arm and pointed down the collapsing corridor she and Scalphunter had emerged from. As one the X-men stared into a wall of shimmering bluish white energy inching forward like a sea mist, devouring everything in its path. Step by step the X-men were forced into creeping retreat.

'It's too late X-men,' Scalphunter intoned, 'Only the Cajun can stop this now.'

* * *

**Critical Mass**

So many possibilities and so much chaos, so much motion, so much power; he could feel it all. He could taste it and touch it and smell it. All or nothing, the greatest rush, better than any pinch, sweeter than the best heist. He itched to make the chaos happen.

The ticking had stopped, all was smooth and all was pure. There was no past, no present, no future; only now, only here, only this moment before everything and nothing altogether. This was it, this was everything. He felt whole. He had ascended. He was what he had been conceived to be. He saw it all and he saw nothing at all.

There was no Remy LeBeau in this moment, no division and no boundaries, between what he perceived and what he was. There was just this moment that was every moment and none of them. Time was not a river, time was not a deck of cards, time was nothing, nothing at all but what he made of it. Time was a roulette wheel spinning for eternity, red and black, red and black, spinning, spinning, spinning…….

Around and around it goes, where it stops no one knows.

Pick a card, any card, roll the dice and roll again; he could hear the beating heart of time and he could reach out and touch the nothing places; the dead and still voids waiting to be filled.

He could not stop; he could not stop. All those possibilities, all those potentialities; like a deck of cards falling through time and space he could do nothing but shuffle those potentials and keep adding new ingredients. It was addictive; it was what he was born to do. The Garden spoke to him; the Garden wanted him to do this. Roll the dice, deal the cards; spin the wheel. He had to keep going, building up and up; creating new twists and new turns.

He was the serpent in the garden and the whole world was his Eve; take a bite from the apple and the prince of thieves will have you. He held the lies of the universe; he was the agitator and the catalyst. He was the mover and the shaker.

Roll the dice, spin the wheel; pick a card. Do you hear the ticking?

Roll the dice, spin the wheel, pick a card……..make it all go boom.

Roll the dice, spin the wheel, pick a card and watch the house of cards fall down. Make it all end and build it all up again. Around and around it goes, where it stops, nobody knows. Shuffle the deck, deal the hand, up the ante; steal the pot. Charge the card, throw the card; make the whole world go boom.

Roll the dice, spin the wheel, pick a card…….roll the dice, spin the wheel, around and around it goes and where it stops nobody knows, pick a card, any card, around and around, red and black and up and down: do you hear the ticking?

He was the serpent in the garden and the whole world was his Eve; he was the agitator and the catalyst. He was the mover and the shaker……he was….

He was……..

Spin the wheel, roll the dice; cut the cards. Deal the hand, cut the deck; throw the card. Do you hear the ticking? He was……….

He was……

Do you hear the ticking?

He was………

He couldn't hear the ticking; why couldn't he hear it?

He was…….

Screaming and screaming inside and he couldn't even hear it. Why couldn't hear the ticking?

He was…….

Screaming and screaming and screaming; merci dieu somebody help him……..

Do you hear the ticking?

He was……..

Please, please, somebody help.

Screaming and screaming. He was…….

He was the Witness.

Do you hear the ticking?

Screaming and screaming inside.

He'd watch the world go boom.


	42. Chapter 42

**Chapter Forty-One: Obfuscation **

**The Maelstroms Heart**

He could see it all. The whole world was a wash of shifting colours, white and hot pink, vivid black shadow and shimmering reds. He could feel the ebb and flow of movement and activity all around him. It was a seething tide of potential; a swirling mass of energy just waiting to be pushed just that fraction of an inch more and then - _boom. _It would blow in a crescendo of actualised possibility.

He could make it happen; the catalyst at the very centre of it all.

He could feel the press of time; he could weigh the roll of the ages like dice in the palms of his hands. Back and forth and back again; time was not a river, it was a shuffled deck of cards; one moment to another, one suit laid out upon the other; the beginning and the end, the betwixt and between, all of it, there at once and all the same.

More than the alpha and the omega, more than the-be-all and the-end-all, he was there in the moment. He was the pivot and the lynch pin, the foundation stone and the fifth column. He was the catalyst and the result all at once.

He was the Witness.

He _will_ watch the world go boom.

…….._but not today._

Not today, no, because there is friction still in the wash of time. There is a wrinkle in the perfect weave of time and space; time is broken in the blinking of an eye. Perfection sundered as the will of a man fights against the tide.

_Why watch the world go boom when he could watch it spin?_

He is the Witness…….But then who the hell is _he_? What the hell is he supposed to witness, if the world is just atoms? All he can see is darkness and light like daggers to gouge out his eyes, not much to look at there, non?

Who is the Witness if the Witness isn't Remy LeBeau?

Spin the wheel, roll the dice; cut the cards. Deal the hand, cut the deck; throw the card.

_Or don't…...here in the moment he is king. He doesn't have to follow the flow, when the flow follows him. _

The maelstrom shudders, the void aches; this is not harmony. This is war. Who is the Witness if he is not Remy LeBeau? Can the Garden answer that? Eve's Serpent was just a tool to his dark master, but is Remy? Is he a tool?

What if he _doesn't _spin the wheel, and the dice remain still; the deck is left uncut and the cards left to fall where they will? He doesn't want the world; he doesn't want the power. Remy LeBeau has never wanted that.

_Who is the Witness if the Witness isn't Remy LeBeau?_

The Maelstrom trembles and the currents of time and space between to fracture, breaking apart like shards of broken glass, spinning through the void; the Garden cannot answer him. The Garden is afraid, for the Garden does not know this truth.

All around and within the world continues to spin; around and around she goes, a whirling dervish through space, and the atoms sing their hymn of creation and destruction soft as angel choirs.

From the depths a tick, tick, ticking begins.

_Feed the Garden, _a voice whispers from deep within the mind that still holds firm against eternity. _Fill the void, subvert truth with lies; make the world go round. Be the serpent in the Garden. _

_It's time to find our own way, Remy-boy. _

Somewhere in the maelstrom the soul of Remy LeBeau stirred and rose, like a leaf on the hurricane winds. He opened his eyes beyond the blinding brilliance of a world ripped down to its atoms. He looked beyond the cold, desperate finality of Sinister's greatest aspirations made reality.

Remy LeBeau looked into the heart of the Garden and he saw………flamingos in the crocodile pools.

The maelstrom spins, the tornado twists and somewhere deep within comes the sound of laughter.

* * *

**Almogordo Complex**

'Archangel, Psylocke go with Polaris and Havok and get Belladonna out of here.'

The walls of the above ground Almogordo facility were already busily evaporating into motes and sparks as Cyclops barked out his order. Sweat beaded on Phoenix's brow as she concentrated on preventing that surge of power from eating away at the team as well. It was becoming as dangerous above ground as it had been in the subterranean Garden.

For that reason Cyclops hesitated to split the team, but reasoned that if there were fewer team members to protect Jean would be better able to devote time and effort towards tracking Bishop and Gambit. Or at least Bishop, looking around at the silent glowing destruction, Cyclops was not at all sure Gambit was salvageable. Shaking off the thought irritably Cyclops pressed on. X-men didn't give up. It wasn't as though death had ever proved that much of a handicap in the past. He glanced almost involuntarily at his Phoenix and saw his wife's lips twitch up at the edges even though her eyes were closed in deep concentration.

'Are you sure Slim?' Warren didn't seem aggrieved to get a pass to leave the facility, but he was an X-man and X-men stuck together.

'There's a good chance this entire complex is going to go into meltdown, even if we manage to find Gambit.' Cyclops spoke briskly, controlled and cool under pressure even as his mind travelled a mile a minute as his chest felt tight from the static burn in the air, 'I want team members out of the immediate area to deal with the fallout.'

The devision of the team was also a strategic move; Archangel was better suited to open spaces than the tight and dangerous corridors of the Almorgordo complex. Psylocke's antipathy towards Gambit meant she wasn't an ideal candidate for a rescue. Plus coupled with Betsy's particular style of fighting she would be better off watching Boudreaux should the assassin try anything fishy. As far as Havok was concerned, Cyclops simply wanted his brother clear if the complex collapsed, and of course, the power of Havok and Polaris combined would be useful if the rest of the team should find themselves trapped in a building collapse.

'What about them?' Havok jabbed a thumb towards Scalphunter who stood without a word, supporting a groggy but now conscious Arclight, as both Marauders were silently menaced by Wolverine.

Cyclops rubbed at the bridge of his nose; he didn't want to waste the energy on thinking on worry about what to do with the Marauders right now.

'Watch them,' He looked his brother in the eye. 'And get both Belladonna's chopper and Warren's plane clear of the site…..just in case.'

'Right,' Havok nodded briskly, forgetting his usual resentment of Scott for just a moment. He glanced briefly at Polaris, expression quirking in thought as he observed the pensive look on her face, but all he did was turn to lead the way out of the complex, taking a pale and almost shaken Belladonna Boudreaux by the arm and escorting the assassin out.

It seemed to Scott that the Cajun woman was eager to get clear of the glowing walls and quicksilver static heat eradiating the air, which Scott had to admit, somewhat ruefully, he did not really blame her for. However Belladonna did cast one long look over her shoulder towards the half-collapsed corridor she claimed led to Gambit and Bishop's location. The expression on the woman's face was not one Scott could easily interpret; she crossed herself in the Catholic fashion and turned away. Scott found himself relieved that he wasn't telepath and could not know what went on in that woman's head.

'Good luck,' Warren flashed Scott a wane smile, cast a worried eye to Jean and then followed Havok out. Psylocke cocked her head to the side and met Scott's visored eye, 'He's laughing, Gambit; he's laughing. I can hear him.' she jerked her chin in a sharp nod, and without further comment the British ninja phased into shadow and departed.

Cyclops watched Archangel's departing form for a moment. Warren's wings quivering as burning sparks of biokinetic energy fizzed over his feathers. Forcibly Scott turned away and found himself looking into Lorna's taut and tense features. The woman's gaze had turned inward as she looked down the heat haze blurred and glowing corridor leading back into the depths of the complex.

'Polaris?' The green haired mutant had not followed Havok, Archangel, and Psylocke towards the exit of the complex. Instead she continued to stare down the glowing corridor with a pensive frown even after Scott had spoken. Now her green eyes shunted to Scott's face.

'You should let him blow this place up, Cyclops; some secrets aren't worth keeping.' Polaris' eyes were grim as she turned to the the two surviving Marauder's in energy bands of magnetic force and pulled them along in her wake as she made for the exit. Her voice was oddly inflectionless as it fell behind her as her heels made a hissing staccato echo in her wake.

'Gambit's DNA, that's what was in the syringe. A compound of synthetic nannites and Gambit's brain tissue; Sinister's Achilles heel was his own descendent. The same power that he wanted to control in Remy is the power that ripped Sinister to pieces inside and out.' The look in Lorna's dark green eyes as she turned to look over her shoulder was another fission of turbulent emotion Scott was glad not to understand. 'If he lives, tell Remy about it. He'll laugh himself sick.'

All Cyclops could do was stare after Polaris for a moment, icy shock lancing down his spine. Almost childishly he wished for nothing more than to hear the professor's voice in his mind. What he would not give to have the professor's instructions now. Cyclops shook his head to clear it; he had to focus. He had X-men to rescue.

'What are y'all waitin' for, let's go!' Rogue's furious question, in contrast to the enigmatic emotion of Polaris and even Belladonna, was all too apparent of her distress and finally Cyclops shook his mind back into gear. Not that it mattered. Rogue didn't even wait to see the rest of the team make for safety before turning to smash her way through the glowing debris strewn corridor leading into the labyrinthine depths of the complex.

'Rogue - wait!' he called after the woman, knowing it was futile even as he did so. Rogue was long gone.

Cyclops nodded sharply to Storm as the southerner disappeared, the sound of shattered masonry filling the sizzling silence in her wake. Storm nodded back in swift comprehension and immediately took flight in pursuit of the impetuous Rogue.

'Jeannie, you doing alright?'

Wolverine asked the question that Cyclops couldn't bring himself to ask while on a mission; he knew that if he allowed himself to see his wife shaking with fatigue and exertion instead of the X-woman Phoenix then he'd crumble and fail in command. Still he couldn't pretend disinterest to hear the answer.

'Phoenix?' one word, but with the weight of thousands; Cyclops knew she'd hear them all.

After what seemed like far too long to Scott, Jean opened her eyes and looked at the pair of them. Cyclops and Wolverine found themselves bathed in bright emerald fire for a moment; molten rivers of power hidden in those clear eyes. Phoenix nodded her head jerkily.

'I think……I think the energy is lessening,' lowering her arms Phoenix dropped down the last few inches onto the ground. 'Before Gambit's powers were fighting mine,' irritably she shook a strand of sweaty hair from her brow, 'it felt like fire ants biting all over my TK shield.'

'And now?' Cyclops asked keenly. The glowing walls and prickly heat-that-wasn't-heat felt the same to him. Although perhaps it was telling that the fuchsia glowing walls, floors, and ceiling hadn't yet exploded. Still it was foolish to get his hopes up; he wasn't even sure what he'd be hoping for.

Jean gnawed on her lip, 'It feels like,' she cast about for the right words, 'It is almost like a tide pulling back out from the coast. I can feel this huge weight of power being sucked back out of the available space,' she met Cyclops visored gaze and of course those bright green eyes saw right through his visor to the man beyond, 'It's almost as if Gambit's charge is being reversed somehow.'

Cyclops frowned, 'Reversed?'

Scalphunter's words echoed in his mind: only the Cajun could stop an imminent explosion in this complex. Was it possible that Gambit was actually in control of what was happening here? Was it possible he was trying to stop it? Psylocke had said he was laughing; was the Cajun laughing at them now?

'Let's go,' he said aloud beginning to run after Rogue and Storm, Wolverine and Phoenix at his heels, 'We need to put an end to this mess once and for all.'

* * *

**The Maelstrom's heart**

The whole world was a wash of shifting colours, white and hot pink, vivid black shadow and shimmering reds. He could feel the ebb and flow of movement and activity all around him. It was a seething tide of potential; a swirling mass of energy just waiting to be pushed just that fraction of an inch more and then - _boom. _It would blow in a crescendo of actualised possibility.

Remy LeBeau reached out his fingers and tangled those digits around the invisible chains of time and space; he touched them and made them sing. There was no cage built that could hold this thief.

The flamingos waded in the muddy waters of the crocodile ponds; delicately dipping their beaks into the same waters that the lions and the buffalo came to drink from. The world was more than mutant and more than the atoms singing through time.

Spinning in the heart of those same atoms Remy LeBeau laughed; he looked into the heart of the tornado, the eye of the hurricane, and he laughed. A tsunami of secrets he had no interest in knowing invades his mind from every which way, and the watchman in his head is ready to throw in the towel; the levees have burst. He is drowning in Essex's filth. Essex's delusions of grandeur, his sublimely perverse madness, seeped into every crack and fissure in his mind. Yet Remy LeBeau did not struggle against the undertow. All his life he had fought the yoke of other people's secrets hanging over his head like a sword of Damocles; today he realised his own mistakes. Today he opened wide and embraced those secrets.

He is the Witness, the lord of lies and laughter - but still, and always, he is Remy LeBeau. No one can take that from him; it is his only salvation.

Roll the dice, spin the wheel; pick a card. Do you hear the ticking?

Roll the dice, spin the wheel; pick a card……..the flamingos are wading in the crocodile pools.

Roll the dice, spin the wheel, pick a card and watch the house of cards fall down. Make it all end and build it all up again. Around and around it goes, where it stops, nobody knows. Shuffle the deck, deal the hand, up the ante; steal the pot. Charge the card, throw the card; this is what makes the world go round.

Because in the end the crocodiles, they never eat the flamingos wading in their muddy waters.

Deep in the hurricanes eye and the heart of the storm, the maelstrom spins screaming through the void.

This is what makes the world go round.

The Garden, she begins to grow.

* * *

**Central Core: Promontory Level**

'Bishop!'

Most of Rogue's uniform was flaking away as Remy's haywire powers sparked of everything and anything including her. She had already lost her gloves, but frankly couldn't care less as she careened through the air, fists held before her, straight for the back of the large black man just standing there in the middle of all the chaos.

The promontory platform was pouring liquid light like the head of a cascading waterfall and the air was so thick with power it felt like wading through molasses as Rogue bore down on her target. Her shout of outrage seemed to come out of synch with her lips, delayed like a time loop. Rogue found herself wondering if Remy's powers had started screwing with the flow of time; the thought would have scared her had she the time to really acknowledge it.

Bishop finally turned around, seemingly moving in slow motion, to face her. His eyes were almost popping out of his head with the energy he'd already absorbed from the very air.

'Where the hell is Remy, Bishop?' she demanded, 'Talk fast, for ah'm tellin' ya, I ain't in a patient mood, hear?' Rogue hovered before him, perfectly prepared to suck the truth right out of his brain if she has too.

Bishop's flickering gaze forced Rogue to look to the end of the platform. There was an object at the end of the platform; it looked human shaped, like a metal coffin, and was festooned in clinging glowing cables. It pulsed with so much power Rogue couldn't actually look at it. The air seemed to quiver in sheets, like waves of heat rising from melting asphalt, and everything had a greenish-white tinge. It didn't even look like the end of the platform was real any more; it was more like looking at a distorted image through a inversed magnifying glass.

Rogue's blood went cold from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes; her throat went dry as a bone for a reason other than the friction heat in the air. 'No,' she whispered, 'Ya ain't tellin' me….'

She was in motion before she had time to think.

'Rogue wait…!'

Bishop's warning comes to late, the distortions in time playing their part as Rogue tried to break through the thick wall of swirling, almost invisible energy falling around the Witness Chamber like a curtain.

Nigh near invulnerable Rogue had almost forgotten what true pain felt like, she had felt it so rarely since the day, at age seventeen, that she had stolen Ms. Marvel's powers. Still agony is a bit like riding a bicycle; you never really forget how to suffer. Breath singed away in a wave of biokinetic fire Rogue couldn't scream as she crashed down onto the floor of the glowing platform. Biting, lightning bugs of energy scored through her veins, invading her pores and stinging through the nerves of her body in a paralysing surge of pain inside and out.

Rogue had never thought to wonder what Gambit's powers felt like on the receiving end – but now she knew all the same. Her mind flashed back to Sinister's eyes as his body had disintegrated. So this is what it felt like to be blown apart from the inside out?

'Goddess preserve us; Bishop get her away from there.'

Sense and awareness returned to Rogue in painful dribs and drabs. She came to in Bishop's arms, after the big man had absorbed the biokinetic charge from her body before it could eat her away one atom of her being at a time. Storm stood at Bishop's side, having chased Rogue down and was now staring wide eyed at that the wildly swirling eddies of energy and the coursing, glowing cables emanating from the sarcophagus shaped capsule at the end of the platform.

'What is that?'

'The Witness Chamber,' Bishop's voice didn't attempt to hide anything, 'It is the only way to preserve the Garden.'

Rogue kicked to her feet as Storm turned to stare at Bishop. 'You bastard; Remy's in that thing.'

Had Rogue had the strength at that moment Bishop would have been a greasy stain on the glowing floor of the chamber.

Bishop stared down at her face impassive, unmoved, like stone. 'It was necessary for the future of the Garden.'

'Screw the Garden!' Rogue turned to stare back at the painful white-violet brilliance of the power washing through the air towards them, 'Get him outta there!' she cocked a fist back without thinking.

'Rogue, enough.' Storm moved forward, arms rising, fingers splayed with lightning. It was difficult to tell what she had intended to do, however. Storm was no more able to tear her eyes away from the sight of the capsule beyond than Rogue.

'I can't.' Bishop spoke staring down both X-women. 'I have tried to get him out – I _can't_.'

Bishop's lips pulled back from his teeth in a pained hiss and for the first time Rogue noticed the sweat poring from his brow. 'There is too much power; I can't absorb or store anymore of LeBeau's charge.'

'Then don't – just get him the hell outta there.'

Bishop's nostrils flared, 'I can't.'

'What are ya…?' Rogue's fist tightened. She didn't care; if she had to she'd steal Bishop's powers and get Remy out herself.

'I can't get to the chamber, anymore than you can Rogue,' Bishop sucked in a sharp breath struggling for control, 'I don't know how long I can continue to store the explosive energies in this room before it must be released. If I approach the chamber I will lose control.'

Wolverine, Cyclops and Phoenix arrived then each running along the platform and each stopping to stare at the capsule beyond.

'Fuck,' Wolverine started to growl, features twitching as his heightened senses reacted to the huge weight of power in the room. Jean's eyes widened in alarm as she swiftly realised that Gambit was inside the device.

'Bishop report,' Cyclops snapped sharply. He hadn't forgotten Belladonna's words. The woman had blamed Bishop for doing something to Gambit and causing all this…this _chaos_.

The time displaced X-man clenched his own fists, 'I did only what I had to do to preserve the Garden and my own future. There must be a Witness.' He replied anger etching deep into every enigmatic word.

'Cyke it was Bishop, he dumped Remy in that thing.' Rogue interrupted only to be interrupted herself by Storm.

'Rogue has attempted to approach the device,' Ororo's voice remained cool under pressure, 'the energy near the capsule is too volatile,' her eyes flittered to the device and then away, 'Even Rogue's invulnerability is not enough to breach the barrier.'

'Is he alive?' Cyclops demanded staring at the cable festooned capsule. The glowing cords looked like creeping tentacles, or leeches, sucking power in glowing tendrils straight out of the device.

Phoenix pressed a hand to her forehead, a sure sign that she was concentrating a psi-probe, 'y…yes. He's alive but…'

There was a hiss and snap, incredibly loud in the disturbing silence of the energies rife in the chamber. All eyes turned to see one of the thick, sinuous cables break free of the capsule in a rainbow shower of phosphor bright sparks. The platform shuddered and the energy saturated walls of the chamber shimmered; waves of reddish energy washing through them like light over glass. Something was happening.

'What is that?'

Rogue demanded as the remaining coloured data cables began to run with strange sigils and dark trails of data that eventually resolved into words and dates. The lights from the cables were reflected in the shimmering walls so that vast reams of data began to spill down the steel walls of the wider chamber and fall away into the deep, smoking darkness of the Garden below.

'Scott _look_….' Jean pointed sharply as the name Nathan Christopher Summers and Cable's date of birth spiralled down the walls. Soon other, familiar, names began to rain down around them as well. Pulsing waves of nearly translucent pinkish energy began to pulsate from the walls; images, like reflections in the surface of a pool began to flicker inside those waves of energy.

Faces of mutants past and present, and maybe even future danced like ghosts in rays of ruby energy. A Phoenix rose and fell and the Askani mother took a baby Christopher into the red only for Cable to appear in reflection seconds later. Madelyne Prior gave way to the Goblyn Queen and little Illyana Rasputin died a sad death in a medbay bed as her brother joined Magneto in space. Charles Xavier became Onslaught and Onslaught burned away to leave only Charles Xavier in chains and fever sweats locked away from his students. All of it seared to life in flashes of fuchsia light only to die away in an instant like the phosphor trails of sparklers through a night sky.

The X-men could only watch, silenced by the culmination of past, present and future, cascading through the tendrils and branches of the Garden.

'Mah god,' Rogue sucked in a breath as the twisting thatch of data cables twisting around the capsule began to move like the crown of snakes on Medusa's head. Fibrous secondary branches split away from the main cables creating spiderweb connections with each other and soon a latticework of data cables completely enshrouded the Witness Chamber.

'What…..what's happening?' Rogue's face was ashen.

Within the Gordian knot of data chains encircling the capsule flashes of secrets past, present and future, continued to crackle like will-o-the-wisps and St. Elmo's fire upon the waters of a night time Bayou.

Cyclops turned to stare at Bishop, 'What have you done?'

The former officer of the XSE did not waver and he did not show any discernable emotion as he answered calmly.

'I have awoken the Garden of my time; I have brought forth the Witness and damned a friend to save tomorrow.'

* * *

**The Maelstrom's heart**

Roll the dice, spin the wheel, pick a card…….roll the dice, spin the wheel, around and around it goes and where it stops nobody knows, pick a card, any card, around and around, red and black and up and down: do you hear the ticking?

_What would James T. Kirk do?_

He was the serpent in the garden and the whole world was his Eve; he was the agitator and the catalyst. He was the mover and the shaker.

_Well maybe but that isn't all he is; anyone can play the serpent. _

He is Remy LeBeau: thief extraordinaire, poker player exemplar, reasonably proficient cook, aficionado of all things Original Series Trek, emotional wreck, commitment-phobic hopeless romantic, adrenaline junkie and wanderlust king; fallen Catholic, exiled son, chronic nicotine addict, habitual evader of unpleasant truths. These are the things that _make_ him.

Twisting around and around in the undertow, Remy LeBeau finds his footing. What would Kirk do? He thinks about the flamingos wading in waters thick with crocodiles; bright pink in the brown savannah. A homme can have hope in the world and in God when he knows that there are flamingos in the crocodile pits. Sometimes it isn't about the winning; sometimes it's about the losing. Throw the game, not because you can't win, but because it takes more style to lose with panache.

Somewhere in the maelstrom Remy LeBeau finds his voice:

'Dis ain't my idea of a good time.'

He takes a breath and the maelstrom shudders……

……and the Garden stops her growing.

The watchmen steps up to the plate; he knows what to do with secrets - and the theatre needs a new show.

* * *

**Central Core: Promontory Level**

It sounded like popcorn Jean realised and instantly wanted to come up with a less irreverent descriptor as she watched alongside the other X-men as the festooning cables jabbing into the iron maiden like capsule imprisoning Gambit began to super charge with energy and disintegrate accompanied by loud popping sounds.

The light emanating from the capsule was too bright for her to look at with just her eyes, but the Phoenix remembered looking into the heart of the sun. So Jean relies on that instead. Closing her eyes Jean summoned a telekinetic shield around her and cocooned her team mates.

_Dis ain't my idea of a good time._

Gambit's power was eating away at the oxygen in the chamber and about ten feet directly circumferencing the capsule was perilously close to becoming a vacuum. Inch by inch the walkway promontory platform fell away into showers of light and friction. The images flashing across the walls faded as the steel turned to fierce, lightning white heat.

'What's happening now?' Cyclops demanded looking at Bishop in the vague hope he might know. Jean, for her part, screened the other X-men out. Where she couldn't go physically she might be able to reach psionically; she was sure she could hear Remy's mind.

_Gambit….Remy, can you hear me? _

It was ironic Jean thought, that she was the only psi in the X-men who hadn't attempted to breach Remy's mind before, and in some ways that left her disadvantaged, she didn't know her way around, but on the other hand it also meant that Gambit wouldn't have had the opportunity to build any safeguards against her specifically. Jean figured that her best shot was now, and she took it even as the steel plating of the outer chamber began to explode, the entire complex seizing and shudder with imminent melt down.

The Phoenix took wing with an eagle scream and entered the sucking, hot and painful void surrounding Gambit.

……_Flamingos…..think of the flamingos….._

'Flamingos?'

Of all the stray thoughts she might have hoped to catch from Gambit's mind this one was so far out in left field Jean realised that it could only be genuine. She almost smiled as she flew through the searing hot head wind straight towards the raw and violent red black tornado dominating the voided mindscape.

Red and black pain assaulted her senses. There was a sense of incredible, claustrophobic violence and motion; Jean felt like a sparrow twisting in the eye of a tornado. She felt jagged knives of bone deep disappointment, blades of bitterness so entrenched she doubted Gambit even knew they were there. Biting waves of repressed anguish tore at her like sandstorms, and torrents of emotion that were raw, unrefined and potentially poisonous threatened to corrode the flesh from her bones.

The Phoenix screamed and it was almost instinctive for Jean to try and fly a course up and out of that sucking, swirling pit of rage, despair, disappointment and loneliness, but she knew if she did she'd lose Remy.

_Roll the dice, cut the deck; throw a card. Spin the wheel, where it stops don't nobody know. Count the cards; tell the lie; smile like you mean it boy. _

The sensation of suffocation only became more intense the deeper and deeper Jean dived through the whirlpool. The flashes of subconscious pain that hit her like lightning strikes out of nowhere made her ache inside. Layers and layers of suppressed hurt compressed together in the heart of this maelstrom.

Jean caught glimpses of the massacre from Remy's eyes; it was horrible but Jean was not exactly unaccustomed to dealing with the guilt of multiple deaths. The original Phoenix had killed billions and consumed suns; it might not have technically been Jean who had committed such unimaginable atrocities, but the dividing line was so slight it made no difference – she still remembered what that hunger had felt like. She lived daily with the knowledge that she _could _have committed the atrocities her namesake had. For that reason she could pass through the traps of memory the massacre was inside Gambit's mind.

Unperturbed by the images of bloody death laid out like bear traps to catch the unwary Jean felt her descent evening out, there was less turbulence now, as if she was passing out of the worst of the hurt and anger and moving closer to the living mind she sought.

_Flamingos in the crocodile pools……fill the levees; the theatre needs a new show. _

Almost abruptly Jean found her downward motion halted. She'd hit the bottom and there was nowhere left to go, yet all she saw was darkness, close and hot like a volcanic cave.

'Remy?' she called mental voice and real one becoming intermingled this deep inside his mind.

_Roll the dice, cut the deck; spin the wheel. _

Jean found him in the centre of the maelstrom, sat hunched down with elbows on knees and an expression of bored distress on his face, like someone trapped in a room full of stuffy old professors; the conversation going on around him incomprehensible and interminably dull. She saw streams of knowledge condensed into formulae and computer code falling like snake cords and rain down around him and pooling at his feet in serpent coils.

'It's not like I ever even been to school,' He told her tiredly, sifting fingers through the twisted mass of information, 'What de hell did Grey Crow t'ink I was gon do wit' dis shit?'

Remy's mental avatar was bleeding; his familiar brown trench coat was so covered in gore and nameless black ichor that Jean winced and between the huge rents and tears in the fabric she could see oozing raw and opened cuts and sores, grating down to the bone. Concern forked through her. Charles had taught her that a bleeding psionic presence was a clear indication of neurological or psionic damage. The worse the manifested injury the worse the damage – and by that logic Remy was in serious danger of permanent brain damage.

'I'm t'inkin',' Remy looked up at her and she saw then that there was a deep gouge in the centre of his forehead glowing like a crimson diamond ember; black blood, old and drying, ran like tears from under his eyes, 'I'm t'inkin dat I need to dig de levees deeper; make me some motes like in dem old world castles, non?'

Jean frowned struggling to understand him. Then realisation dawned on her, 'You can't.' she whispered, as all around her darkness gave way to the neon fuchsia outline of a cityscape; New Orleans painted upon the void. All around her serpent tails of information, secrets untold and untellable, continued to fall, threatening to burying Gambit whole. 'You can't keep all this information inside you, Gambit. You're mind isn't capable of containing it.'

Jean wasn't sure any mind would be; Sinister's madness had made him a monster, after all.

Gambit's mental watchman smiled at her slyly, 'Bishop don' t'ink so, de homme seem to t'ink it's my destiny to do dis; same wit' monsieur Essex.' He chuckled darkly, 'I've always been good at keepin' secrets, Jeanne.' He flapped his hands, bloodied and raw, over the mass of sinister secrets wrapping like chains around his legs, 'Mebbe I'll fin'ly live up to m' potential, non?'

Jean was instantly suspicious. Gambit shouldn't have had the mental awareness to summon an avatar to talk to her, yet he obviously had. As she frowned Jean could feel a shifting of intent all around her. Gambit was thinking something, planning something.

'What are you planning to do Gambit?' she pressed urgently, 'I can help you protect yourself, you don't need to do this alone. For god's sake Gambit, I'm not out to get you.'

He smiled and it seemed to Jean that the gory diamond sunk into his skull winked rubies at her, 'I know dat, Jeanne, but see, I don' wan' your help.' His almost gentle smile did nothing to soften the sharpness of his words, 'See I been t'inkin' lately, an' I decided dat de X-men, well you people just ain't good for a body's health.' He winked at her, 'Least not this body anyway.'

The maelstrom shifted and from somewhere Jean thought she could hear a deep, rhythmic ticking, like the heavy ponderous thrum of a grandfather clock. The tornado started to spin, faster and faster, in the opposite direction than it had before. The jagged knife points of hurt and bitterness turned outward, the sand blasted serrating winds of pain began to writhe once more, and into that swirling mass the golden trails of sinister's ill-gotten knowledge was swept up and away, lost in the blazing scorpion tail of the tornado.

Jean knew what Gambit was doing and it left her cold. 'Remy please don't do this.'

He smiled at her sweetly, 'Ah come on, Jeannie, you know dis is de best idea. Poisoned chalice, oui? What you gon' do; suck de knowledge out m' head an' keep it yoursel'? You know dat you got a taste for temptation, cherie; mebbe de knowledge make you go dark again, eh?'

'You're not a psi Gambit, what you're trying to do……you could destroy your own mind.'

He grinned at her, bright as the mad hatter, 'No loss dere den, oui?'

He rose to his feet looking up and up the writhing funnel of his own blood soaked soul, 'T'ain't like you can unlearn somet'ing, oui? You muck wit' my head, tear out all Essex's knowledge, well dat like to turn m' brain to mush too, non?'

Jean tensed, 'I can put up blocks, mental inhibitors to stop you accessing….'

He laughed, 'I'm a t'ief chere, you put a lock on m' thoughts I'm gon break it, guaranteed. An' we bot' know telepath tricks don' work all dat well on me.'

'Then let me help you do this; let me help you build shields around the knowledge. Together we can….'

'Turn me into another Cyclops clone? Make me a stable law abiding member of de mutant terrorist society?' he interrupted her amused, and he was much sharper and more astute in the privacy of his own mind then he allowed himself to be in the real world.

Jean clenched her fists tightly, 'I can do it without your consent.' The words left a nasty taste in her mouth.

Gambit nodded calmly, 'But you won',' he beamed at her, 'Don wan' anot'er Onslaught on de X-men's conscience, oui? How mon capitan gon feel if he have to take you down because you picked up all my shit?' His eyes danced, 'Plus you got more manners den dat, an' it ain't like you gon miss me all dat much if'n I turn int' a brainless vegetable.'

Jean blinked in surprise, opened her mouth but couldn't come up with a quick enough response. Gambit's eyes twinkled as brightly as the diamond on his forehead.

'It be better dat de Garden's secrets stay in my head, where I ain't gon be able to use what I can't unnastan', den someone like Henri get hold of dem. Monsieur bête be a good man,' Gambit's smile became biting, 'But den, once upon a time, so was Nat'aniel Essex.'

The maelstrom was twisting faster and faster all the time. Jean could force it to stop, she could wrestle control of his own mind away from Gambit – but he was right. If she did that she would be no better than Charles when he ripped away Magneto's mind, and she would be inviting the same dangerous schism to rend her mind that had driven Charles mad and birthed Onslaught.

'You're up to something,' Jean said again. She could feel it in his mind. There was a sense of optimism, of purpose, a sly excitement as if he was about to perform some grand sleight of hand.

'Always, cherie,' He didn't deny it.

She stared at him trying to make sense of this man and what drove him. 'You're risking destroying everything you are, your memory……everything.'

He shrugged. Flickers of fuchsia light spreading out under his feet, fusing together and forming the simple and prosaic replica of an ordinary city sidewalk; the scent of chicory coffee wafted over from nowhere to fill Jean's nostrils and she thought she heard the clip-clop of heavy horseshoes over cobbled streets. Gambit was rebuilding his shields even as she stood watching him.

'Ain't de firs' time I been broken, Jeanne.' Gambit told her soberly, 'After de massacre, dere weren' much lef' o' who I thought I was.' He shrugged again, the blood and filth covered mantle of his trench coat sliding over his shoulders like a protective carapace, 'I got better – I made m'sel' someone else.' He smiled suddenly, 'I can do it again.'

Realisation crashed over Jean, 'This is what you wanted all along, isn't it? You want to escape your past – wipe the slate clean.'

His grin was as bright and sharp as a knife blade, 'Tabula Rasa.'

Jean saw Jackson Square and the cathedral rise from fuchsia embers and burn away to simple unreality. She saw marigolds and daisies invading the burned out shell of an old chevy truck in a dead end alley. The void gave way, inch by inch, to hordes of faceless pale spectres, swimming in shoals along the sidewalks and the Boulevard. Each and every anonymous shadow wearing a blazing diamond in the centre of their featureless faces; she shuddered and the Phoenix longed to spread her wings and break free of the cage Remy was making of his own mind.

'This isn't freedom,' she whispered, 'This is a prison.'

Gambit laughed, brightly, 'Plenty o' folks would say dat be no less den I deserve, non?'

He clicked his fingers and searing ruby light blinded Jean and she felt the violent, savage wrench as Gambit tried to throw her from his mind. Jean reacted swifter than thought.

The Phoenix spread her wings and dug in her talons, but it was like trying to grab fistfuls of air, or a bucket full of greased eels, all writhing together. She could feel great fissures tearing open in the landscape of his mind, fissures filling to the brim with over a hundred years of Sinister's dark and twisted secrets. They ran like cold rivers through the prefect simulacrum of New Orleans that cemented into existence all around her as Jean clung on to Gambit's mind, his formidable shields snapping back into place around her and threatening to trap her inside.

'Gambit - stop this!'

_Flamingos and crocodiles, Jeanne; mon professeur got his dream, but me, I live for something different. I live for flamingos in the crocodile pits, an' de sinners batterin' at de gates of heaven. _

The Phoenix rose to the skies above the unreal New Orleans and watched as the levees encircling the city filled with Sinister's oozing darkness. She watched glowing data cables twist like bougainvillea from the wrought iron balconies of the French Quarter. She watched the jazz boats dawdle down the Mississippi, steaming through dark polluted waters twisting with links and chains of the X-Factor Genome. She watched the pale faced wraiths with their sinister glowing diamond brows, dip in and out of the winding black inked alleys.

The Phoenix could do nothing, and would do less, as the mutant Gambit ceased to be and something altogether darker and more sinister rose up in his place.

_King of secrets me, _she heard Remy LeBeau's laughter as his mind swallowed whole the deep corruption of the Garden, _I been peddling lies since I was pup – dis ain't no diff'rent; Science is jus' voodoo wit' out de chicken blood. _

The Dead Man's Gambit Theatre was the last to rise from the ether of Gambit's mind, but the fuchsia neon sign burned through the shroud black void hanging above the city like a beacon, proudly proclaiming just one word, one warning and promise both, in intermittent pulses that repelled Jean even as it caught her mesmerised:

_Witness._

* * *

_A/N: This chapter was a rhyme's with a witch to write. This whole story is an evil monster that is punishing me for my over reliance on complicated plots and loopy plot twists. I am a very miserable fanfic writer this day ;-(. _


	43. Chapter 43

**Chapter Forty-Two: Resolution pt 1**

**The Xavier Institute for Higher Learning**

Scott Summers sat staring at the white computer screen, the jumping cursor waiting for the first typed word. He could dictate a verbal report and save it to Cerebro's memory, but he preferred the tedium of laying out his thoughts into text. There was something almost cathartic about it. Also de-humanising; the recitation of fact, the distillation of past events into objective phrases, it all helped to remove Scott Summers from the experience. Except that the magic of report writing wasn't working today.

Scott Summers stared at the white word document screen and couldn't think how to start. He wondered what Charles would say. He wondered how the professor would have done things differently. He imagined the debriefing the professor would give him, looking over the steeple of his fingers at Scott, satanic eyebrows arched and true feelings hidden.

The door to the study opened and Jean stepped in, swiftly closing the door behind her. She was wearing ratty old jeans and a green t-shirt and her hair was still a little damp from a shower. Her face was pale from fatigue.

'There was nothing you could have done,' she told him handing over a steaming cup of black coffee. She raised her own cup to her lips, eyes pinched and hard. 'There was nothing any of us could have done any differently.'

'Small comfort,' Scott looked down into the depths of his coffee mug. 'Ororo still up on the roof?'

Jean just nodded. 'Still – it's been four hours already. She won't answer me when I call her.'

Scott sighed and pushed the chair back so that his wife could shimmy over and settle on his lap. 'At least it's not raining, hailing, or anything else.' He pointed out with a failed attempt at not very great humour. Jean smiled thinly to make him feel better. She dropped her head against his shoulder.

'I can't help but feel he did all this on purpose.' Scott admitted after a small silence, wherein the bigger silence of the house seemed far too loud.

'Gambit, I mean.' He clarified when Jean remained very still in his lap. 'I can't help but feel that he wanted to make the X-men pay.'

Jean closed her eyes, 'Pay for what?' Her question didn't so much dismiss Scott's theory as confirm it by inference.

Scott Summers tipped his head back against the back of the chair and stared up at the moulded flowers of the ceiling borders. For some reason he had always thought they were ugly, yet every time the mansion was rebuilt so too were ceilings in exactly the same style. Scott wondered why he was thinking about ceilings right now. He supposed he just wanted a distraction.

'For not being the answer he was looking for,' He answered the question slowly, 'for not having the power to absolve Gambit of his past.'

'Oh,' Jean said shifting a little as she sent out a tendril of thought to float both her mug and his back onto the desk. Scott tilted his head back down so he could look his wife in the eyes. Jean wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her forehead against his.

'Do you think we failed, Jean? Did the X-men fail?' He asked her wrapping his hands around her waist, revelling in the feel of her soft, supple skin under the run of his palms as he slipped his hands under the thin fabric of her old t-shirt. 'Are we just kidding ourselves thinking we can make a better tomorrow?'

'No Scott,' Jean told him with absolute conviction, 'we didn't fail. We didn't win, but we didn't fail either. Failure is not trying….and we did try, and we always will.'

Scott grimaced, even as he pulled Jean closer to him, 'I'm tired of trying,' he admitted, 'Just once I'd like to win too.'

'Everybody does.' Jean smiled, her lips brushing his as she spoke, 'We're not the answer to every problem, Scott, but we're at least trying to find one. That has to mean something.'

'You'd think so.' He murmured darkly.

Scott closed his eyes, memories of secret sinister labs deep under the New Mexico desert dancing behind his eyes. He saw Sinister defeated and he saw a silent flash of fuchsia light eradiate the night sky. He heard Rogue's scream in his memories. He opened his eyes to see Jean watching him.

'Kiss me.' She told him.

Scott lifted one hand to curl into the thick vibrant hair at the back of Jean's head. He kissed her like his life depended on it, holding on tight as, gentle as tears, the rain began to patter against the big study windows.

* * *

**Garden Core Promontory:**

'Cyke just blast it!' Rogue demanded as the crackling tension in the chamber ratcheted up another notch.

Cyclops curled a hand around his visor but hesitated. He had no idea of the tensile strength of the metal capsule containing Gambit. If he blasted it he might end up punching right through the metal and his blast would smash into Gambit with enough concussive force to pulverise bone and send the other mutant flying down into the abyss of energy seething below. He also didn't know what adding more energy to the writhing storm of Gambit's powers would do; they were trying to stop critical mass here, not add to it.

'We cannot take that risk – there is too much energy building as it is.' Storm spoke for Cyclops and he was grateful.

Rogue was not. 'Do ya hate him that much?' She demanded and Cyclops winced. Now was so not the time for this. Thankfully Rogue seemed to realise this herself and said nothing more. Ororo said nothing at all, as if she had simply not heard Rogue's rebuke at all but there was a thunder clap building behind her eyes.

'Something is happening.' Bishop spoke up.

The big man was kneeling on the floor of the promontory platform, palms flat to the metal plate trying to absorb the overflow of energy. He was shaking with power and the veins branching along his forearms stood out against his dark skin. His eyes were bloodshot and bulging; he couldn't take much more. 'I can feel a change in the current of energy.'

'Good change or bad change?' Rogue asked for Cyclops.

'I don't know.' Bishop admitted through gritted teeth.

Cyclops took a deep breath; time had run out and he knew he had to get the team out of here now. They had one last chance to try and free Gambit and after that……well….sometimes there just aren't any happy endings.

* * *

**Xavier Institute**

Ororo sat on the roof staring at the middle distance. She wore an old leather jacket salvaged from her punk days and her arms were wrapped around her middle as she hunched in on herself.

The sky was blanketed in thick, smog like greyish-white clouds and it was neither hot nor cold. The preternatural lethargy of the weather was, as ever, an accurate manifestation of Ororo's inner feelings. There was a numbness; something deeper than shock, deader than resentment eating away at her. She could not truly form a coherent thought, nor know her own heart.

'Yer goin' to stay up here long, 'Ro?' Logan, crouched like a waiting cougar on one of the eaves, an unlit cigar clenched between his lips.

'That is no concern of yours Logan.' She snapped.

The allegedly feral Canadian snorted and with surprising nimbleness he came to sit beside her, lighting his odious cigar. 'So yer say, but between yer sulkin' up here on the roof an' Cyke lockin' himself up in Chuck's office the team's bang out o' luck fer leadership.'

Ororo gave her old friend a rather sour look, 'If this is your attempt to manipulate me, then I suggest you give up now. I am unmoved.' She turned back to watch the heavy clouds congeal over the sky further.

Logan chuckled and released a breath of foul smoke, 'So yer gonna take a page from Gumbo's book and have a pity party all damn day?' Logan shook his shaggy head, 'Cajun would laugh himself sick to see the way the lot o' yer are moping about.' The sly Canuck shot Storm a rather shrewd look, 'Never saw yer as a hypocrite, 'Ro.'

Ororo jolted in surprise and turned sharply on Logan, 'I am not a hypocrite.' The clouds shifted ominously, darkening with thunderclaps of rain.

'Sure yer are.' Logan argued easily. 'Gumbo screwed yer over, 'Ro. Ain't gonna claim the Cajun didn't love yer,' the man tapped one big knuckled finger to his nose sagely, 'the nose knows an' Gambit could never hide his feelin's to save his life.' Ororo tensed visibly at this last statement but Logan pretended not to notice, 'but that don't mean he didn't mess yer around; did as much of a number on yer as he did, Rogue.'

Those keen, bright blue eyes stared fixedly into Ororo's. 'He lied to yer face, cuz the Cajun knew there ain't no way the truth wouldn't hurt yer and he knew that yer _knowin'_ the truth would hurt _him_ too. Gumbo made his choice, darlin'. He knew what the rest o' yer just ain't got the balls to face.'

'And what is that?' Storm asked him archly, quietly seething.

Logan shrugged turning away to blow a thick, yellowish smoke ring up into the still, heavy air.

'Forgiveness kills.' The old berserker stated without inflection.

Ororo stared for a long, long moment at the dissipating smoke ring fading on the air. She wrapped her arms more firmly around herself. 'I wanted him gone.' She said softly. 'I thought that if he was dead I would be able to forgive him.'

The Wolverine stubbed out the butt of his cigar on the guttering and rose to his feet. 'Figure Gumbo knew that.'

'Yes,' Ororo said in bloodless voice, 'and now that he is gone I find that I still cannot forgive him.'

Almost silently it began to rain, falling in sheets to skitter over the roofing tiles and down into the gutters. The still smouldering remnants of Logan's cigar hissed as the rain water washed the butt away.

'Yeah,' Logan stated simply as the rain fell down in a soaking curtain, 'Figure Gumbo knew that too.'

* * *

**Garden Core Promontory:**

_Zark!_

Cyclops loosed a medium intensity optic blast directly towards the foot of the capsule. He hoped the promontory floor, and the energy pulsing within, would absorb the brunt of the force. The platform shuddered but the capsule remained untouched, almost as if Cyclops power simply bolstered and fed the nimbus of energy dancing through the metal.

'Cyclops!' Storm admonished him. He shook his head readying another blast.

'We have to do something Storm and time is running out.'

Cyclops, Storm, Rogue, and Bishop were all preoccupied and Phoenix was still focused on the Astral Plane and so no one saw the serpent like tendril detach from a power hub fixed to the wall of the chamber behind the gathered X-men, and snake towards Cyclops. Faster than a whip crack the tensile, sinuous data cable had coiled around Cyclops ankle and jerked his leg out from under him.

'Whoa!'

Cyclops had no chance of catching his balance as the tendril wrenched his legs out from under him and he hit the floor of the platform hard. He felt the static burn of kinetic energy chasing through the layers of flesh under his uniform as the tendril released its charge into him. He twisted to blast at the cord wrapped around his ankle before it could explode and take his leg with it.

Rogue was a split second faster however, and in an instant she had ripped the cable from the wall, killing the flow of energy, and torn it free of his ankle. The glowing cord spat dying sparks and writhed like a snake in its death throes for a few seconds before fading to empty, colourless transparency.

'Ah don't reckon it liked ya shooting at the metal box sugar,' Rogue drawled acidly picking up the deadened cable and throwing it over the edge of the railings, 'Seems ta me that means we're on ta something, right?'

'Maybe,' Cyclops was not so convinced but he brushed himself off and loosed another optic blast. This time he aimed high and was able to shave off a few of the outlying data cables forming a complex Gordian knot around the capsule. Energy flashed through the walls of the chamber, shivering through the air.

'Nice one, sugar.' Rogue grinned savagely. 'Hit it again.'

Cyclops was about to speak when he noticed something happening to the platform a few feet ahead of them.

A patch of steel clad platform floor started to glow dark, dark indigo, contrasting with the whitish luminance of the rest of the chamber. Cyclops was not the only one who recognised what that meant. He had seen Gambit's cards flash that lurid neon brilliance hundreds of times before.

'Get back!'

Cyclops snapped out the order, reaching out to pull his mentally absent wife back with him to a safe distance. The other X-men jumped back and a large section of the promontory platform exploded in a spray of twisted metal and concrete.

'No!'

Rogue tried to lurch forward into the air but a searing wave of ionised air knocked her back as most of the platform fell away with nothing left to keep it up. The end of the platform where the capsule stood crumbled to flakes and motes of whitish-pink dust and larger chunks of glowing debris before falling into the roiling ocean of power below.

* * *

**Xavier Institute:**

The man known in this time and place only as Bishop stood under Storm's deluge in the shadow of the mansion grounds' periphery wall; he was supposed to be patrolling but he knew his attention was not what it should have been.

After returning from New Mexico a week ago, Cyclops had stated categorically that Bishop was not to be reprimanded for the part he had played in the Almogordo meltdown. Cyclops had argued that until they knew all the facts he wasn't about to sanction an X-man versus X-man witchhunt. He had also pointed out the purpose of the X-men wasn't to stand in judgement over one another. Bishop was not sure if he was grateful for this or not. He was not sure it truly mattered either way. What did any of it matter now that Bishop had destroyed his own future?

Tracking through the early evening darkness, made all the more complete due to Storm's rain shower, Bishop did not waste time questioning his choices. There was no point. He had acted in error and the repercussions of his actions would be felt for some time. All Bishop could do was wait to find out what it would all mean for his future.

_I won't save you. _

LeBeau had told him that when he had sealed the man away in the Witness Capsule. Bishop had been so convinced of the rightness of his own actions that he had all but ignored that warning. He above all others should have known that the future is ever changing, the present an unreliable viable, and the past open to all manner of interpretation. How could he have been such a fool?

Bishop stopped in his tracks and turned to look up at the mansion roof. He could just make out the seated silhouette of Storm against the darkness, and Logan's prowling shadow descending from the eaves. In his time and place, back in the XSE, an officer who turned on another, no matter the reason, would be brought up for an immediate court marshal, usually followed by execution via firing squad.

Bishop stared down at his empty hands; he was a traitor. A traitor to his new team, a traitor to these X-men he had once revered as a boy. He had betrayed not just a teammate but also a man he had believed was his surrogate father. He had stayed with the X-men to catch the traitor in their midst, and instead, he had _become _that traitor.

'I am sorry.' Lucas Bishop said, letting his empty hands drop to his sides as the rain pounded down. 'I am sorry.'

That the big man didn't know if he was more sorry for what he had done to the teammate and friend, or for the future he had put in jeopardy only furthered the sense of guilt and shame he suspected he would shoulder for the rest of his days.

* * *

**Garden Core Promontory:**

For a terrifying moment, as the end of the promontory platform fell away, Cyclops thought he had just cost his erstwhile teammate his life. Then he realised that the capsule was not falling with the rest of the promontory platform.

'Remy!' Rogue hissed again trying to take flight, but the very air was so rife with crackling energy that breathing was painful, let alone movement or flight. The X-men could do nothing but back away from the collapsing platform towards the door and watch the situation spiral even further out of their control.

The capsule containing Gambit did not fall at all, instead the writhing nest of data cables lifted it from the falling debris and held the capsule suspended from the ceiling in a thicket of glowing multi-coloured vines right above the bio-kinetic flood. For all the world it looked like a brightly glowing Easter egg hanging from a tree branch. The mental image was so incongruous that it snapped Cyclops out of his surprise.

'We have to get out of here!'

Almost on the heels of his exclamation a series of muffled explosions rocked the chamber as parts of the Garden that had previously survived Gambit's massive power out, blew to kingdom come, and the structural integrity of the entire complex came into doubt. On the end of Cyclops arm Phoenix jolted, coming abruptly back to herself.

'What about Remy?' Rogue demanded.

Phoenix threw up a telekinetic shield and speared one hard green eyed glance back to the hovering capsule. 'He's made his choice. He's conscious in there and he knows what he's doing.'

Jean shook her head, eyes flashing with frustration and anger. 'He never wanted to be rescued; he's decided that he's going to swim with the crocodiles instead.'

Cyclops and the other X-men frowned, 'What do you mean?'

Jean's eyes were hard, 'It doesn't matter, Scott. Gambit's made his choices. He's taking his chances against the Garden – alone – and there is nothing we can do. Nothing he'll let us do to help him.'

Another ferocious explosion rocked the X-men on their feet and the remaining sections of the platform began to fall away, eaten by power inch by inch. Cyclops stared up at the capsule and then turned away unable to look at the searing light.

In a strange way he could almost understand why, faced with all that had been revealed, Gambit would rather go out in a blaze of glory doing what he always intended to do, than live with the consequences of all he had done to reach this point.

Still Cyclops might have understood the mentality, but he couldn't agree with it. He didn't know if it was the ultimate expression of selfishness on Gambit's part, or just cowardice. In the end it didn't really matter. Gambit had dealt this hand and he was not about to the let the X-men change the outcome of the game.

'X-men – retreat!' Cyclops barked out and he, the silent Wolverine, Bishop, and Phoenix started to run as Rogue and Storm flew towards the exit. Rogue stopped before leaving and stared wretchedly behind her as pieces of masonry and steel I-beams began to fall from the vaulted ceiling.

'We can't just leave him!'

Rogue broke rank and flew forward, towards the hanging capsule; fighting the waves of loosed kinetic energy all the way. Phoenix screamed at her to stop, to come back, but Rogue was not listening. She ploughed forward through the biting waves of energy in the chamber and dived toward the capsule, risking the pain she had previously experienced all over again.

'No!' Phoenix increased the strength of her telekinetic shield so that it appeared wings of flame enfolded her team. The X-men could only watch what happened next.

_Gambit - don't hurt her again! _Jean screamed out mentally as she tried to arrest Rogue's motion and wrench her back to safety with a telekinetic tendril of thought and will. Rogue was too fast for her, however. The southern mutant dived straight for the nest of cables shielding the capsule.

There was a silent, tremendous flash of power, a wash of blinding greenish light. Rogue didn't have time to know what had hit her. Power pressed against Phoenix's shield and her mind like an army of fire ants prickling against her skin, forcing her and the other X-men back.

They all heard Rogue's scream.

* * *

**Salem Centre - Westchester:**

Lorna Dane sipped her beer from the bottle as she watched the other patrons of Harry's Hideaway go about their business. The atmosphere back at the mansion, a place that had never really been a home to her, was too much like the worst kind of funeral for her liking. She'd had to get out of there before she said something she might regret later.

The door to the bar opened and an athletically built blonde man walked in to survey the crowd. The man was wearing an old denim jacket and stone washed jeans with what looked like a slightly avant-garde black top with a design of concentric circles radiating from the centre. He spotted Lorna on his second optic circuit of the room. He made a bee-line straight for her after picking up his own beer from the bar.

'This seat taken?' Alex asked her before dropping into the chair opposite without waiting for an answer. Lorna gave him an ironic smile.

'Couldn't stand the X-men angst fest either, huh?'

Alex smirked and took a swig from his beer, 'Figured I needed to get out before someone remembered that I'm supposed to be evil right now…..or worse, no one remembered that at all.' He added dryly.

Lorna grinned. 'Poor baby,' she purred with saccharine false sympathy. 'Is didums all bent out of shape because big brother won't take him seriously as a mutant hard-line terrorist?'

Alex rolled his eyes. 'Cut it out, Lorna.' He swallowed a good quantity of his beer in one pull. 'Scott's locked up in the study brooding, but before he went in he told me that we needed to _talk_.' Alex arched his blonde brows, 'You think I was going to stick around after that?'

Lorna laughed. 'For a Summers brothers talk?' She asked him brightly. 'I'd think most of the rest of the team would want to clear out before you and Scott went at it again.'

She gave him a very dry look, 'And think after the number we did on the Blackbird, you don't even have the option of throwing big brother out of plane if you don't like what he has to say.'

Alex grinned back and clinked his glass against her bottle in a toast, 'Hence the reason I bolted to the nearest bar I could find.' He admitted before his gaze softened. 'You get tired of the funerary dirge going down back on Graymalkin Lane?'

'Tired of the whole X-men bit, more like,' Lorna confessed. 'Sometimes I think this whole fight for mutant rights, protect a world that hates and fears us deal, is just an excuse for a bunch of twenty or thirty something slackers to navel gaze and avoid getting a normal nine to five paying job.'

Alex laughed, 'Yeah but you're forgetting that Logan's the best he is at what he does…'

'…And useless at anything else,' Lorna interrupted, finishing off her beer. 'Seriously Alex, don't you ever get sick of it?'

She gestured with one hand in a circular motion to encompass all and nothing. 'After a while it's like I just forget what it's actually like to live in the real world. It's like everything becomes an 'Us' and 'Them' thing.'

'Isn't it?' Alex asked her and she couldn't tell if he was deliberately playing devil's advocate or if he was serious.

'No,' she said. 'Not everything is that black and white, Alex.'

Alex's smile was soft, 'You're thinking about the Flamingos and the Crocodiles, aren't you?'

Lorna toyed with the peeling label on her bottle. 'I suppose so.' She conceded.

Jean had told everyone about her last psionic conversation with Gambit. Whereas most of the X-men couldn't understand it, Lorna had somehow understood exactly what Remy had been hinting at. The idea of the primal, yet somehow more innocent world of Remy's imaginings, a world full of flamingos wading safely surrounded by hidden crocodiles, had an oddly salutary effect on Lorna.

She looked up and met Alex's gentle gaze. 'I think Remy had it right; the world isn't black and white, it isn't even shades of grey….people everywhere live in full spectrum colour, except us X-men. We're trying to save a world that _we_ hate and fear.' She shook her head. 'I don't want to play that sick game anymore, Alex.'

Alex reached across the table to take her hand in his habitually warm one. 'Let's go.' He said pulling her to her feet. Lorna let him do it; puzzled and curious.

'Go where?' She asked.

'To find a crocodile pit we can live and love in.' He told her simply.

* * *

**Garden Central Core:**

Rogue screamed as a three line whip of data cables, wide as a good sized tree trunk, slammed her out of the sky. The lash batted her away from the pulsing centre of the thicket of hanging cables in the same way a fly swatter might crush a bug.

Rogue ricocheted into the wall and a searing, prickling wave of bio-kinetic energy spiked through her body on impact. Dazed Rogue might have fallen bonelessly into the waiting surf of energy below, except that branches of smaller tendrils caught her about the arms and torso, pinning her against the wall.

'Leggo o' me!' Rogue bucked and twisted but despite her strength she couldn't break free; no sooner had she torn free of one branch then three more tendrils wound about her, sinuous and supple as static charged serpents.

'Rogue.' The shout was a warning and Rogue immediately held completely still as a focused beam of ruby red energy lanced across the cords of cable holding her bound. Cyclops optic blast distracted the cables, which loosened their grip and Rogue was able to force her way free of them.

As soon as she was free Rogue made another headlong dive for the pulsing, thrumming knot of greenish-black corded energy hanging from the centre of the chamber. Remy was still trapped inside there; she could feel it in her bones.

'Yowch!' Another stinging wave of energy deflected her dive, forcing Rogue back and momentarily blinding her.

'Fall back – Rogue that's an order!'

Even as Cyclops bellowed the command Rogue felt the warm tingle of Jean's telekinesis catching hold of her mind and body. Rogue did her best to fight it, trying to break free of the compulsion and make another dive for the mass of cables, but she couldn't. The heatless light and energy radiating in bursts from that twisted knot was too much for her. Rogue flew back to the rest of the team, who had retreated to the fragment of platform by the door that still held.

'Phoenix – Bishop, any ideas on what's happening?' Cyclops demanded as he loosed another wide angled optic blast towards a tentacle of twinned cables that rose up from the underside of platform like the arms of a kraken. Both X-men shook their heads in the negative.

The cable fell away, but others rose to join it as a network of spiderweb-like veins of glowing data spread across the walls and branched out into the empty space towards the main pulsing centre of power containing Gambit. The effect was eerily like watching oil slick black and neon sulphur frost creep over a windowpane made of pure energy.

'What about Remy?' Rogue demanded. 'He's still in there, ah know it!'

Phoenix pursed her lips, 'I…..' her eyes grew suddenly wide. 'Oh my god - look!'

As one the X-men turned to stare at the pulsing knot hanging from the centre of the chamber as one by one the other threads of cable joined it, forming an even tighter trap. Greenish-white light and energy hissed and bubbled out from the dwindling gaps in the roughly egg shaped knot of cables. If Gambit had truly been inside there he would surely have already suffocated, and was likely about to be crushed.

'Goddess preserve and keep us.' Ororo whispered hoarsely. The entirety chamber was thick with an interlocking tapestry of glowing cables and wild energy ran up and down those lines and cords like ice melt over cobweb.

Bishop jolted on his feet, a spasm running up his spine; his eyes went wide and wild. 'Phoenix shield us – _Now'. _

From the centre of that next of cables a band of agonisingly bright light and energy ripped forth. There was a silent as complete as all creation and the entire chamber was lost in a soundless release of pure energy. The X-men had no time to turn and run.

* * *

**Almogordo - outside of the facility**

'What the fuck was that?' Alex Summers demanded as the aftershocks of some kind of subterranean tremor passed through his body from the feet up. He looked down at the ground and swore again. 'Jesus Christ almighty.'

Alex Summers jumped back as the hard, gritty, sandy ground under his feet began to glow a familiar and worrying pinkish hue. 'Jeez this can't be good.' He hissed as looking up, he saw that the wreckage of the cooling tower was also beginning to glow as was the deep hole he and the other X-men had bored into the ground to enter the underground complex to begin with.

Archangel, flying about seven feet off the ground slapped a hand over his comm. Badge. 'Cyclops? Archangel to anyone – can you hear me?' After a moment of complete silence he shook his head angrily. 'Still nothing; I don't know if it's energy interference or what it is, but the comm's are completely down.'

Alex nodded grimly and glanced over at the indigo haired X-woman, 'Psylocke?'

With her eyes closed, the odd tattoo across one side of her face seeming oddly bright in the lurid glow of the fuchsia lit night, Psylocke shook her head. 'I can't sense much of anything; Gambit's powers play havoc with telepathy,' she paused and actually smiled thinly, 'No pun intended.' She shook her head. 'I'm sure if the team was in danger – or dead – I'd sense it. Other than that we're totally in the dark.'

'Great.' Alex's mouth twisted sourly. He glanced at Polaris who was standing a little ways away looking away from the complex and out into the night. 'Okay – I'm open to any and all ideas. Should we evacuate the area or go back down there?'

From the place where Belladonna Boudreaux watched the two Marauders, Scalphunter curled his lip and spat on the ground. 'You that keen to die, X-man?' he demanded. 'Don't you get it? The kid's gonna blow this place. If we get out now we'll be safe. If we stay we'll be vapour.'

Belladonna moved forward, fast and smooth, and struck Scalphunter around the head with the butt of her gun. The mercenary staggered, blood welling from an opened divot in his temple, but he did not fall.

'Mouth shut homme.' Belle warned him sweetly, holding a second handgun in her other hand pointed at Arclight as she aimed the first back at Scalphunter's head. 'Or mebbe de nice X-men gon throw you back down in de pit, to take your chances wit' m' husband, non?' she smiled humourlessly.

Alex cocked his head to the side and smiled – this smile was also not that friendly, 'There's a thought.'

'Alex.' Archangel's voice was all disapproval and for a moment it rankled but then Alex reminded himself he was no longer seeking approval from men like Warren Worthington and shrugged it off.

'It's a valid idea – I mean it is kind of Scalphunter's fault in the first place. He's the one who started up this machine that supercharged Gambit's powers.'

Alex flexed his fingers meditatively feeling them heat with plasma energy. 'Plus Scottie would only have to find some place to lock these two up in the mansion, and he's already got Sabretooth and Dark Beast to deal with.'

Havok looked over at Psylocke and Archangel, 'Think of it as garbage disposal.'

Psylocke looked as if she might actually be seriously considering the idea, while Warren remained morally implacable. Polaris sauntered over then. 'Boys – we're getting side tracked.' She pointed out.

'We have to figure out what to do about this.' She gestured at the fissure of glowing energy the entrance hole in the wreckage of the cooling tower had become.

Alex felt his eyes widen as he realised that even in the time he and Warren had been talking the outhouses around the complex had started to glow along with the ground under their feet and the night air had taken on a static-y thickness reminiscent of the breathless tension within the complex.

'Oh crap.' Alex swore with feeling. 'We have to get out of here right now.'

As if on cue, as soon as the words left his mouth, the first of the charged outhouses near the fallen cooling tower, erupted in a geyser of greenish-white energy. The X-men scattered, running for the waiting Worthington jet.

* * *

**Garden Central Core:**

In various states of dazed the X-men picked themselves up off the ground. Cyclops helped Jean to her feet; the effort of shielding the team from the wave of discarded energy from the capsule had shaken Phoenix and Scott could feel it through the link he had with his wife.

'Oh mah lord,' Rogue was the first to her feet and she could only stare horrified, at what had become of the capsule wreathed in data cables, 'Remy – mah god, Remy!'

Wolverine stood nearby snarling almost unconsciously through his teeth, his stance that of a predator at bay. Storm and Bishop rose to their feet and turned to stare at the glowing, pulsating orb that floated within a nest of cables in the place of the capsule that had contained the mutant Gambit.

'What is that thing?' Cyclops asked, squinting behind his visor against the shimmering whitish-green glare emanating from the orb-like object hovering in space. He didn't expect an answer, truthfully, and was therefore surprised when Bishop offered one.

'The Princess,' he whispered as if awed, 'The Momentary Princess – the Witness' greatest secret and the source of much of his power.' The big man shook his head in wonder. 'It is not supposed to exist in this time zone – or at least it was not discovered until much later.'

'What is it?' Storm asked, holding a hand up to her brow to shade her own eyes against the glow. 'What is its purpose and how did it come to be here?'

'The Princess is a temporal anomaly; it is time and space condensed.' He turned to stare at the X-men, 'It is a literal crystal ball granting the wielder the ability to know all possibilities in time.' Bishop turned back to stare at the glowing orb. 'In my time it was the Witness' play thing – he was the only man in the history of human or mutantkind to ever master the object; the only man who could control it.'

'Then this is it?' Cyclops breathed out in a rush as the pieces of the puzzle came together. 'This is what Sinister wanted Gambit for all along. He wanted to use Gambit, the Garden, and the Princess to control time itself.'

The Princess began to spin, turning in a corona of its own eldritch energies. As it did so tiny capillary tendrils of data began to crawl over the amorphous, only semi-solid surface of the orb; sparks flew and the light pulsing from the Princess went from green-white to hot pink. The entirety of the chamber shuddered and the air grew tight once again with rising power. From everywhere and nowhere a mechanised voice rang out in soulless tones:

_Witness integration complete: pick a card, any card…….._

There was a tremendous rush of energy, like a soundless firework, and in the aftershocks of fuchsia luminescence the boundaries of time and space collapsed.


	44. Chapter 44

**Chapter Forty-Three: Resolution pt 2**

**The Xavier Institute for Higher Learning**

Rogue pulled the trench coat collar up as she stepped off the back porch and into the thick drizzling rain, which was busy saturating the grounds. She wondered how much longer Ororo would keep sulking. Rogue knew the other woman was mad as hell with Remy and would likely as not electrocute his skinny no good ass if he turned up back at the mansion. Still, Rogue had enough sense to know she was in no position to criticise.

Shaking off her thoughts Rogue padded across the lawns towards the wilder parts of the estate. She didn't know where she was planning to go except that she needed to be on the move. Still she didn't want to fly. Instead she wanted to walk through the undergrowth of the woods, the ends of her purloined trench coat catching on the brush. She wanted to loiter in shadow under the trees.

The trench coat still smelled of Remy, which basically meant that it reeked of old tobacco, road dust, a faint hint of spice and the whisper of spearmint gum. Strangely, and for no sensibly reason, the scent was nowhere near as awful as it should have been. The over-sized coat kept the rain off and the familiar scent comforted her a little.

Rogue knew that she was the only person in the mansion who truly believed that Remy was not only alive somewhere out there in the big bad world, but that he was still himself – still as sane as he started out. Jean thought Gambit had already been corrupted by Sinister's influence before the Witness programme and the Garden got a-hold of him. Cyclops thought that Remy was either dead or crazier than a coon with a tick up his butt (not that Scott Summers would use an analogy like that). Wolvie didn't seem inclined to speculate one way or the other and 'Ro was too busy feeling sorry for herself anyhow.

Rogue felt like the only one who knew the truth; she knew that Gambit might be through but Remy would be back. Maybe not exactly the man he used to be, but that old Cajun snake knew how to shed his skin and start over. She remembered the shadow of his true self that had lived in her head for weeks; _that_ man had the resilience of a cockroach. He'd survive a meltdown, especially if he was the one who caused it in the first place.

Rogue wove in and out of the trees silently. She did not even realise she was tapping into Remy's ability to move without making a sound. From inside one of the large outer pockets of the trench coat her hand closed around a pack of cards. Casually she withdrew a few cards from the pack and fanned them in her hand. She grinned at the hand she had drawn: the ace of spades, the queen of hearts, the joker and the suicide king.

'What are the odds, huh?'

She chuckled to herself and put all the cards away save the queen of hearts, that card she pushed into the sleeve of her uniform. She continued walking. She decided that she'd have to dig out her old sewing machine and get this old coat properly washed, then she'd cut it down to size so she could wear it without tripping up.

'Sugar wherever ya are, ah hope ya havin' fun,' she told the damp night air.

After a moment Rogue gathered herself and launched upwards into the sky, the trench coat flaring out behind her like the tail of a comet. Tomorrow was a new day and Rogue was determined to make the most of it. She flew over the grounds and high into the drizzling clouds.

She'd spent so long afraid of shadows, afraid of the dark places – but she wasn't going to be afraid anymore, because she knew, in her heart of hearts, that one day she'd walk into one particular shadow and find a grinning snake charmer waiting for her. She would look forward to that day.

* * *

**Garden Central Core:**

_Witness integration complete: pick a card, any card…….._

The echoes of that soulless, inhuman voice rattled inside each of the X-men's heads as the boundaries of reality, time, and space, trembled before tumbling down around them. The Momentary Princess throbbed with power and from the depths of its infinite centre came images; profane and sublime, impossible, improbable, and horribly prescient.

'Charles!'

Storm started as an image of professor Xavier, chained and dressed in prison scrubs being harassed by Bastion, filled their minds only to warp and shift into an image of Charles Xavier walking with the aid of a stick and standing proud surrounded by mutant children; the Xavier Institute a real school at last. Once again the image shaded into something else, becoming Xavier torn by grief and regret as his students turned against him one by one and the world became a much harsher and bleaker place.

'What the hell is this?'

Wolverine snarled through his teeth as Xavier fell away and an image of a thousand sentinels converging on the island of Genosha, raining down destruction and death without restraint, filled the glowing expanse of the chamber. Magneto rose and he fell away under the onslaught. Mutants died in droves and a diamond woman shone as she staggered through the rubble.

Then Logan saw himself, burning up under the magnificent sun in deep space, as he held Jean's limp body in his arms. He saw the Phoenix rise, nurtured by the blazing sun. He saw her struck down in her blazing majesty soon after.

………_Pick a card……..any card…….around and around….._

'Scott - these images – they seem so real!'

Jean Grey-Summers clutched at her husband as she saw him leap through the air, an expression of utter determination upon his face, plunging headlong into a vortex of power wherein Apocalypse stood in the centre.

She saw her only true love, her husband and her life, die for his son. She saw a ring of twelve mutants, some friends and some foes, watch in horror alongside her as the first X-man perished. She saw herself, wreathed in flame standing by, helpless, as a man wearing her husband's form, but dead inside, destroyed the love between them; the love that had been the one and only constant of her existence. She saw her grave marker and the cursed epitaph therein: "She will rise again."

……._Around and around….where it stops…….no one knows….._

Scott Summers recoiled in horror as he saw a man who could not possibly be him embrace another woman over Jean's grave. He felt sick to his stomach to see that other woman's face. He could not bear the cold triumph in the eyes of Emma Frost. Behind his visor Scott Summers closed his eyes tightly, but still saw everything through his wife Jean's stricken and horrified eyes.

……_.Pick a card, roll the die…….try your luck……_

Rogue said not a word as she saw herself learn to bleed and know pain again as a dark clad stranger stabbed her right through with a gigantic sword amid the squalor of Madripoor's shanty towns. She saw herself rise and live again, without gloves, a tattooed girl in a coastal town. She could almost taste the freedom as she tasted the phantom brine of sea salt on her lips.

……_Pick a card any card………challenge the house, play your hand……._

'No!' Bishop almost staggered as he saw himself, wild eyed and crazed, raise a gun to the head of a tiny infant, fire, and seemingly end the life of Charles Xavier as the man shielded the infant. Bishop saw himself hunted by those he had once revered; X-men who wanted him dead. He saw the flash of Wolverine's claws as X-men ordered to kill on sight surrounded him. He heard a whisper in his ear, cold and laughingly mocking: "One minute before Dawn."

Faster and faster the Princess spun, green-white light shading to angry, pulsing fuchsia as Sinister's dark and twisted data cables adhered like leeches to the Princess sucking up the secrets of maybe-tomorrow like blood. The X-men were trapped and helpless, unable to break the spell of foresight and see through this most deadly game of smoke and mirrors.

* * *

**Xavier Institute:**

Wolverine chewed on the end of his cigar as he prowled through the soaked evening shadow. He was feeling old today, or maybe he was just forced to remember how young his teammates were. There was a lot of hard living and even harder knocks separating him from the rest of the team today.

Beer in one hand Logan caught the scent of Bishop skulking under a copse of trees a little ways off into the woods, even over the pungent aroma of his own cigar. The old Canadian curled his lip in dark amusement. Now there was a man with a lot on his mind. Cyke's decision not to punish Bishop for whatever the hell it was he had done to Gumbo was probably a far worse censure for the big man than anything else Summers might have come up with.

Now Bishop had nothing to live with but his own conscience. There were few things worse than self-loathing.

Logan paused, narrowing keen animal eyes to catch a hint of the man, caught all in shades of grey against the canvas of wet darkness. He thought about going over and talking to the young buck, but figured there was nothing to say. Bishop was just going to have to come to terms with his actions in his own way. That was life and she was a royal bitch.

Turning around and removing his cigar from his mouth so he could swallow from his beer bottle, Logan looked back up at the roof. He snorted sourly to see that 'Ro was still sat up there, getting rained on, and feeling sorry for herself. A shiver of genuine sympathy passed through Logan. Storm had maybe the only real legitimate bone to pick with the Cajun. Logan only hoped that she didn't become bitter when she realised Gambit wasn't going to give her the satisfaction.

Gumbo knew how to make a helluva mess that was for damn sure, Logan thought not for the first time in the last week. The man knew how to make a heck of an exit too, Logan chuckled dryly. Gambit had delivered a real clear "fuck you" message to each and every person on the team, whether he had meant to or not.

The Cajun had played them all for suckers; dragging them along on his crazy ride by the nose; got the team to take out Sinister for him even. Then, like some bizarre balancing act of good for bad, he'd left Hank with maybe the best chance the furry scientist had ever had to cure Legacy before pissing all over everything the Boy Scout, Jeannie, and the rest of the kids in this mansion had always believed to be Gospel.

Gumbo made a lie of the X-men's dream; not because he didn't respect it, but because he shone a light that couldn't be ignored right onto the dream's limitation. The world wasn't black and white and there was rarely enough order to balance out the chaos. Gambit was a child of that chaos, more so even than Logan himself, and the X-men just couldn't handle chaos.

Logan's teeth flashed in a stiletto thin smile, 'Whatchure do for an encore, bub?'

He asked the rain and then, as the wind changed, he caught a new scent on the air. Logan's nostrils flared; he never forgot a scent. Lips skinning back from sharp incisors in a grin that could only be described as savage, the Wolverine hared off in pursuit of this new scent.

Something told him the encore was here sooner than expected.

* * *

**Garden Central Core:**

Cyclops was shaking and the images kept coming, searing into his brain even with his eyes squeezed closed. The whisper in his brain still retained a Cajun accent even as it hissed sibilant soulless malice through his bones.

_Ask your question…….choose your lie……..you want to know tomorrow? Pick a card and play the game………Witness and I'll show you everything…..there are no secrets in the Garden….._

It was Storm who broke the spell first. 'We have to leave - Cyclops we must leave!'

Reaching out to shake the field leader Ororo gestured around her at the deep indigo threat pulsing in the walls. She could feel the thrum of power eating away at her body like a deep cramping ache. They stood in the centre of a maelstrom of pure destruction and the Princess was the cruel and mocking eye of the storm.

The rest of the X-men broke free of their daze in stages.

'The doors out, y'all,' Rogue stared at the thick wall of striating energy fizzing around the edges of what use to be the corridor beyond the central core chamber. The doorway looked like a solid shroud of pinkish-white energy; a sparking nothingness that threatened to devour everything it touched. 'We ain't gonna be able to leave the way we came in.'

Cyclops pursed his lips, 'I'm open to suggestions.' He cast his gaze over the contours of the chamber, grown indistinct as the room was swallowed in a rising tide of pure energy.

'We need to go up.' Phoenix said. 'About a level, I think. We should be able to reach the open air that way.' She looked at the heavy-hitters of the team: Rogue, Storm, Bishop. 'Can you blast us a route through the ceiling?'

'We can but try.' Storm rose into the air, which hissed and crackled around her as she tried to wield elements that had already been broken down and re-formed by the insidious wash of energy.

Bishop summoned a bio-blast without a word spoken and aimed for the ceiling of the chamber above their heads. Phoenix swiftly erected a telekinetic shield around them. It proved to be unnecessary however as Bishop's blast dissipated into the hissing mass of energy long before it reached its target.

Rogue was more successful as she rose to the air and hammered a fist into the throbbing steel ceiling. 'Ouch, that tingles.' She shook her fist, which had picked up a pinkish glow after the first blow. 'Ah think ah can pound mah way through but it's gonna take time.'

'We ain't got time darlin'.' Wolverine growled. 'I can smell it –this place is ready to blow.'

Phoenix frowned and pressed a hand to her temple. 'Let me try something.' She closed her eyes and sent her mind outward, seeking a consciousness she was no longer certain still existed.

_Gambit – help us. I know you don't want to hurt us. We're trapped in here. _

She sent her psionic message bounding through the chamber. She had a sense that some form of intelligence was watching them all. There had to be something controlling the Princess, after all. Whether that consciousness was still recognisable as Remy LeBeau was another matter entirely, but the team was out of options and Jean would have to take the gamble.

_You win Remy; we give up. The Garden's yours. Now get us out of here. _

There was an almost subliminal groan and a shudder ran through the still extant structures of the chamber. A moment later, as Jean felt her consciousness brush against the hidden contours of another mind somewhere else in the chamber, a tesseract portal ripped open wide right in front of the trapped team.

'Whoa,' Rogue dropped back down to the broken platform, 'Nice goin' Phoenix.' Through the tear in the fabric of space and time it was possible to see the night sky and feel the coolness of the darkened New Mexico desert. 'How'd ya summon a portal, sugar?'

Phoenix pursed her lips, 'I didn't.'

_Thank you Gambit. _

Rogue was not the only one to frown at Jean a trifle suspiciously because of her enigmatic evasion, but now was not the time to second guess. Cyclops shook himself into action.

'Quickly everyone through the portal – now,' He gestured for Jean to go first, then Ororo. Rogue pulled back.

'But….what about Remy?'

Cyclops opened his mouth, and what he might have said probably wouldn't have been wise. Therefore it was just as well Wolverine spoke first.

'He's gone darlin'.' The short man took Rogue carefully by the elbow, mindful of her torn uniform. 'Gumbo's playin' fer different stakes now, an' we ain't invited t' the table.'

'He ain't dead Logan, ah'd know if he was.' Rogue did not pull free of Wolverine's hold as he manoeuvred the pair of them closer to the portal.

'Course he ain't darlin'.' The old Canuck agreed sagely. 'Cajun's an X-man an' we all get at least one get out of death free card t' play.'

Rogue seemed to deflate a little when Wolverine did not dispute her. She allowed herself to be escorted through the portal alongside Wolverine. Cyclops turned to Bishop who was staring fixedly at the Princess.

'Bishop we need to move out; now.'

The big man, face cast into lurid red hued shadows by the writhing power cascading through the chamber, turned almost dazed eyes onto Cyclops. It took him only a second to gather himself however and he nodded gesturing for Cyclops to precede him through the portal. The team leader frowned at him.

'We step through together, Bishop. I'm not leaving anyone else behind.' Cyclops added darkly.

'As you say, Cyclops,' Bishop glanced over his team leader's head briefly and outward towards the glowing orb of the Momentary Princess.

For just a moment he thought he saw something, or rather some_one_, standing there behind the Princess. Bishop thought he saw long straggly white hair, red eyes, and a wizened, maniacal grin. _Be seeing you pup – you better watch your back. _Bishop thought he heard the Witness laughing at him. A moment later Bishop blinked and there was nothing but dancing shadow and roiling light.

'Now, Bishop.' Cyclops commanded.

Bishop and Cyclops stepped through the tesseract, which was already closing, sealing like a shallow wound behind them. Seconds later the rip in space and time had closed completely and the outside world might not have existed for all the difference it made.

From with the twisted contours and knotted vines of the sinuous dangling trunk made of data cables wreathing the Momentary Princess, a long fingered hand, bloody and sliced through with neon glowing fibreglass filaments, reached down to clasp the Momentary Princess.

'Mirror, mirror in de air….I t'ink it time you went back where you come from, Princess.'

A card appeared, glowing like a captive star, even amid the brilliance of the pulsing chamber, and was flipped artfully from skilled fingers. The card passed right through the immense heart of the Momentary Princess, slicing cleanly across the face of time and space.

A second later all existence imploded into light and shadow and the Garden ceased to be as anything other than a memory and a warning for tomorrow.

* * *

**Xavier Institute:**

Hank McCoy, blue bounding Beast, pulled off his spectacles and rubbed at the grove of concentration he could feel through the thick mantle of fur covering his brow. His eyes burned and his head ached, but by Jove, it was good to be busy and productive again.

Hank, with Threnody's competent help, had already processed and qualified forty percent of the data downloaded from Sinister's databanks into Cerebro. Already the information contained within was enough to give a man of science heart palpitations filled with both joy and horror combined. Hank was sure that some of Sinister's data would prove unusable by any ethical standards simple because the results had been gathered in a manner best described as barbaric.

Nevertheless, even if almost fifty percent of this appropriated data was good for nothing but immediate erasing, the other fifty percent could advance the forefront of medical science and research by decades. Warren had already promised to have his pharmaceutical wing of Worthington Industries manufacture, test, and distribute any and all vaccines and treatments to the world that Hank might be able to synthesise from the data salvaged from Sinister's immense store. Thousands of people, both mutant and human, could soon be given a new lease of life; their pain and sickness alleviated if not completely eradicated.

His mind aflame with ethical quandaries and potential breakthroughs Hank lumbered gainfully through the mansion. He was mindful not to seem too exuberant as it would not be politic, but he could not help the spring in his step.

'Looking spry, Hankster,' Bobby was exiting the kitchen, or at least trying to, as Hank launched himself forward through the threshold.

The result of this collision led to Bobby being propelled back into a waiting dining chair by the table with a resounding 'oof' of surprise and Hank having to dive to catch the falling box of Twinkies before they hit the floor and the sweet goodness was forever sullied.

'My apologies, Robert,' Hank plucked a Twinkie from the rescued box in his hand with a dainty claw. 'I trust you were intent on sharing this here bounty with your hirsute and boisterous bosom companion; namely, for the sake of brevity, my own good self.' He popped the sweet treat into his mouth.

Bobby rolled his eyes, 'Nope I was going to go down to the secure basement and share them with your evil doppelganger.' He deadpanned before adding. 'I was on my way down to the lab. I thought only Twinkies would get you away from all that mad scientist stuff you've been doing for the last week.'

Hank swallowed the mouthful of his second Twinkie. 'Am I required to start cackling maniacally at this juncture?'

Bobby grinned, 'Only if you can do that with a mouthful of calories, big blue.' He reached out a hand for the box of snack food, 'Unless you want to give me back my snack?'

Hank pulled the half empty box close to his lab coat swathed chest protectively. 'I think not. Possession is nine tenths of the law, after all.' He plucked up and devoured another Twinkie. 'All your snack food are belong to me.' He added with a grin.

Bobby opened his mouth for a suitably witty riposte in rejoinder but was rudely interrupted by the Cerebro proximity alarm sounding a split second before Cerebro's dulcet tones filled the hallowed halls of the mansion.

_Warning – intruder detected: unauthorised use of teleportational device on grounds……analysis confirms tesseract activity._

Hank and Bobby stared at each other for one long, drawn out second frozen in time before Iceman broke the spell.

'Tesseract activity - oh shit!'

In the blink of an Iceman and Beast had leapt to their feet, the Twinkie box discarded on the dining room table. The two X-men ran out into the grounds to join the rest of the team; Iceman creating an ice path to get them their faster.

* * *

**Almogordo - outside of the facility**

The other members of the X-men team were waiting when Cyclops, Phoenix, Bishop, Rogue, Wolverine and Storm came tearing out of a hole in the fabric of space and time about a mile away from the power soaked Almogordo complex. By this point everything within the complex confines was glowing, from the rubble of the old cooling tower, to the gritty dust of the hard packed earth. The low buildings and remaining cooling tower of the Almogordo nuclear facility burned like neon stars against the darkness of the pre-dawn sky.

'What happened?' Angel demanded dropping down to land by his leader.

'There's no time,' Cyclops bit out as he continued to run full tilt for the waiting plane, 'We have to get out of here.'

'Can we stop the explosion?' Storm demanded twisting around to stare at the complex, 'If explosion is even the correct term.'

'I can try to contain it,' Phoenix replied curtly, 'but I'm not sure how successful I'll be. I can protect us easily enough, beyond that I think we have to just let it go. At least we're not anywhere near a populated area.'

'No,' Cyclops asserted himself, still struggling with the memory emblazed upon his mind in pink and neon of himself and Emma Frost. 'We need to evacuate the area immediately. There is no point in risking X-men lives trying to contain the explosion.'

'And Gambit?' Havok asked as he and Polaris joined the huddle.

Scott frowned darkly knowing the expression was lost under his visor. 'We couldn't get him out.'

'Christ.'

Cyclops wasn't sure who uttered that not entirely irreverent curse but he thought it might have been Warren. Which reminded Cyclops of something as they all piled into the waiting Worthington private jet.

'What happened to Belladonna?'

'Left,' Polaris told him curtly, still refusing to board the plane as she watched the lights and wild colours dance through the complex.

'She's one cold blooded bitch; she figured Remy and the rest of you were goners and she packed up and went.' Strangely Lorna did not sound entirely disapproving.

'What about Scalphunter and Arclight?' Cyclops demanded as he and Polaris finally boarded the aircraft. The air was getting thin outside as Gambit's charge ignited the oxygen. If they didn't leave now the plane might be caught up in that energy snare as well.

'Psylocke knocked them out. We secured them in the cargo hold.' Alex told him as Cyclops finally sat down and buckled himself in. Alex's eyes were on him, 'So you're really just leaving Gambit; do you even know if he's alive or dead?'

'No I don't,' Cyclops admitted, 'but there was nothing more we could do.' He stared back through the porthole window of the plane. He looked out at the lurid, nightmarish visage of the glowing Almogordo complex. In his mind's eye he saw Emma Frost's cold blue eyes.

'There was nothing more the X-men could do.' He said again quietly as the plane lurched off the ground.

* * *

**Xavier Institute:**

The X-men present on the mansion grounds scrambled to respond to the intruder alert. They raced or flew across the grounds to reach the part of the estate Cerebro had isolated as the intruder's location.

Wolverine was the first one on site. He stood amidst the neat headstones in the Xavier estates private cemetery plot under the boughs of a stately apple tree. Rogue and Ororo dropped down to land nearby.

'Wolvie what's the deal…..oh!' Rogue stopped short. She stared beyond the shadows of the apple tree.

Ororo raised a fist and pressed the knuckles to her lips. Her eyes were wide as she too stared. Bishop arrived next and stopped dead in surprise. His arms dropped to his sides and all he could do was stare, just as the others did, at the object sitting under the apple tree in the cemetery.

Cyclops, Phoenix, Beast, and Iceman came up at a dead run only to find the other X-men standing around in a loose half circle staring into the shadows of the graveyard.

'What is it?' Cyclops demanded. He was surprised when Rogue turned around, tears streaming down her face, but with a grin so wide it could eclipse the moon.

Why don't'cha come and see for ya self, hon?' She asked stepping away so that Cyclops and the others could get their first look at what had so captivated the other members of the team.

Cyclops stared; they all just stared. No one could have expected to find _this_.

* * *

**Worthington One: **

The plane continued its ascent. None of the X-men spoke. Storm had taken a seat by one of the windows and was staring so intently through the tiny porthole that her nose was almost squashed against the glass. Cyclops had no desire to know what thoughts were going through Ororo's mind right now.

'What's the plan, Fearless?' Warren asked him from the end of the cabin by the door leading to the cockpit. 'We should be at high enough altitude to be safe from the explosion in the next two minutes. Do we get the hell out of here or….?'

Or stay to watch, Scott finished for him sourly. That was what Warren had just enough tact not to ask out loud. Cyclops stomach roiled with a mixture of anger and dismay. As Cyclops Scott Summers had lost X-men before, and this was not even the most wrenching loss, not even close in fact, but that didn't make it any easier in the long run. Cyclops had still failed, after all.

This was Gambit's doing, Scott thought suddenly. Planned or not, this was Gambit's fault. Gambit had made sure that any rescue mission the X-men could have launched would only ever be a failure. Cyclops could not forgive the man for that, nor was it easy to stomach just how easily Gambit had managed to manipulate him and the rest of the team. Somehow even the things Gambit could not conceivably have planned out in advance had turned out in his favour in the end.

To hell with it, even Bishop's act of betrayal had ended up ensuring the rest of the team was unable to stop Gambit getting his revenge on Sinister by destroying the Garden. The house always wins, Scott thought bitterly, and Gambit had dealt the game from the beginning.

'Why?' Scott asked no one at all, 'Why has this happened?'

More than ever Scott wished the professor was here, not because he truly believed any longer that Charles could solve everything wrong with the world and the team, but simply because he, Scott Summers, would feel better knowing he was not the only one trying to hold the cracks together with his fingertips.

Once again his mind flashed back to the cat-like smile on Emma Frost's face; the quiet triumph in her eyes as they had kissed over the fresh lad turf covering Jean's snow covered grave. He shuddered.

Sitting beside Scott in the plane Jean threaded her fingers through his and squeezed his hand. She brushed her head against his shoulder and pressed her love and support against his mind like a soft warm blanket. She didn't say a word because there was nothing to say, but it was enough to know she was there with him – even after the things they had both seen.

By the window Ororo gasped and the sound sliced through the preternaturally tense atmosphere within the cabin.

'Goddess preserve and keep us all – he has done it – _look!'_

X-men crowded to the windows of the plane so they could watch the Almogordo complex blow to kingdom come. Cyclops didn't. He sat perfectly still in his chair with Jean's hand tightly grasped in his own and closed his eyes against the lurid glow as the inside of the cabin was momentarily swathed in shades of fuchsia reflected through the windows of the cabin.

The house always wins, and Scott Summers couldn't get the image of himself and Emma Frost from his mind. He shivered in revulsion as below him Sinister's greatest stronghold evaporated into super-charged atoms.

If only Scott could console himself with a comfortable lie; if only he could believe that what he had seen would never come to pass – but Scott had been to the future, he had lived it, and he knew that anything was possible, and most of it was bad news.

Damn you Gambit, he thought bitterly as the afterglow of the silent explosion many thousands of feet below faded away in complete silence, and the X-men turned away from the cabin windows with ashen faces.

Somehow Scott knew that Gambit had activated the Princess on purpose. Remy LeBeau's future had always been a bleak one; he had more reason to fear tomorrow than he had to fear his past, Scott understood that now. What he did not understand was the pettiness that had caused the thief to make his own hell the X-men's as well.

_Witness and I'll show you everything……you wanted the truth…..now live with tomorrow. _

How could Scott face tomorrow when it carried the whisper of the White Queen's smile?

* * *

**Xavier Institute:**

'Is that what I think it is?' Scott Summers asked no one in particular as he stared at the…..object…..under the apple tree.

'Um, yeah,' Bobby drawled, 'It's a bright pink glow-in-the-dark plastic flamingo.'

Bobby's irrepressible grin broke free. 'God that's so cool – can we keep it? Can we, please?' He made puppy-dog eyes at Scott who ignored him while Jean covered her mouth with her hand to smother a smile.

Scott Summers stared at the foot high lawn ornament that had been pitched into the ground in the shadow of the apple tree in the professor's cemetery. Bobby was right, it was an almost offensively bright shade of pink, it did appear to be, if not glow in the dark per se, then at least internally lit so that it shone in the dark, and it was shaped like a flamingo.

It was arguable the strangest thing an intruder had ever left within the Xavier grounds and that was factoring in some tough competition.

'Jean can you sense any other thoughts in the vicinity? Logan, can you smell anything?' Cyclops demanded trying to maintain the proper vigilance and alertness.

'I don't sense anyone but us, honey.' Jean told him confidently, a little smile playing over her mouth as she looked at the flamingo.

Cyclops tried to tear his eyes from the flamingo and found he couldn't. He noticed a slim manila folder on the ground beside the ridiculous ornament. 'What's that?'

Rogue leaned down to pick up the folder and her breath hitched for just a moment as she pulled a playing card from under a paperclip pinned to the front cover. She held up the Joker for everyone to see. Her hand trembled just a little as she did so.

'Logan?' Cyclops demanded as he nodded for Rogue to open the folder. The wily Canadian snorted with dark humour.

'Caught Gumbo's scent on the grounds 'bout five minutes before the alarm went,' He nodded to the flamingo. 'He was here alright, but the scent's gone cold.'

Cyclops frowned sharply. Thoughts flew through his mind so fast he couldn't quantify them. The brilliant pink flamingo kept his attention captive. It was so powerfully out of place it almost seemed to transcend the ordinary boundaries of good or bad taste. Scott wondered in abstract fashion about the placement; there must be some reason the Cajun had put the thing right in the middle of the X-men cemetery, and under this particular tree. It was so incongruous there must be some twisted message inherent to the placement – and Scott was not entirely sure he truly wanted to be let in on that joke.

'You're sure it was Gambit?' He asked Logan, already knowing the answer, as the attentions of the rest of the team sharpened around him. Wolverine gave him a very steady look.

'I never forget a scent, bub.' The gruff old man scratched his chin. 'Ain't like anyone else would leave something like that for us to find either,' He nodded to the flamingo. 'Gumbo's got a real whacked out sense of humour, that's for sure.'

'Remy…..was here?' Ororo's fists were tightly clenched at her sides. 'Bishop, Beast, Wolverine – spread out across the grounds. He might still be nearby.' She added urgently.

'Alas my dear Windrider,' Hank began gently, 'I fear the intruder alarm was set off by the portal with which our erstwhile Cajun compeer chose to leave the vicinity.' Beast gestured with his open hands. 'He could literally be anywhere in the world by now, so long as that anywhere was a known transmit co-ordinate for Sinister's tesseract network.'

Ororo's expression was unreadable. She turned mutely to stare at the flamingo for a very long time. Above all the X-men's heads the dark clouds parted and the rain ceased. The flamingo continued to shine a bright and cheery light over the cemetery. Scott found himself fighting an urge to either violently uproot the damned thing, or start laughing hysterically.

'Oh mah lordy,' Rogue breathed out in an excited rush as she flipped through the loose leafs of paper inside the manila folder, 'Cyke ya gonna want ta see what Remy's left us.'

Proudly Rogue held up one page sized image clearly taken from a security camera feed. In grainy black and white and grey it was possible to see the face of Professor Charles Francis Xavier. Cyclops grabbed for the image as the others all crowded around Rogue.

'Lookee here,' Rogue almost crowed, 'Blueprints on Operation: Zero Tolerance bases, Prime Sentinel schematics, something about nanite tech….' Rogue finally handed over the folder to Cyclops. 'Just think what we can do with this intel; heck we could finally find out where the government stole the prof away ta.'

Rogue was smiling triumphantly. Jean took the copied photograph of the professor from Cyclops hands as he rifled urgently through the contents of the folder in the near dark. She handed the picture over to Hank who could see better in the poor lighting.

Scott's heart thumped heavily inside the cage of his chest. He might not be able to read the detail but he could see as clearly as Rogue that what was contained in this folder, if it was legitimate, could bust Bastion's Zero Tolerance wide open – or at the very least give the X-men a fighting chance against it. A fission of something hot, fierce, and hopeful ran through his veins. It seemed like a very long time since the X-men had been handed good news.

'Hey – what's this?'

Bobby's curiosity dragged Scott's attention away from the goldmine of intelligence in his hands. He looked up and away from the folder almost reluctantly.

Iceman was crouched down beside the flamingo. He reached down to depress a button on the underside of the bird's belly. Lights flashed from within the semi-hollow plastic of the ornament and from a speaker set into each painted wing issued forth the tinny strains of a very familiar recording: Frank Sinatra singing "My Way".

The X-men stood and stared in a moment of sublime and surreal surprise as the garishly ridiculous singing ornament began to strobe flashing lights like a visiting UFO and the familiar melody of the old song rang through the damp night air.

Rogue clapped a gloved hand over her mouth in a vain attempt to smother her giggles. Bobby didn't even pretend to try and repress his amusement and Ororo's eyes grew impossibly wide, her fingers twitching at her sides. It was impossible to know if she was closer to tears of rage or laughter, or perhaps, some mixture of the two. Jean buried her face against Scott's shoulder, but he could hear her laughter in his mind.

'……I did it my way…..' Sinatra sang.

The flamingo flashed coloured lights gaily and Scott noticed the battered, broken comm. badge fastened like a choker with a piece of string around the ornament's neck. A formless, nameless tension slipped from his shoulders then and there.

From out of the tinny speakers of the flamingo Frank kept singing. Scott's lips quivered. He swallowed once, twice, and then a third time but it didn't do any good. He laughed and once he started he found it felt good.

His laughter broke the spell and soon Rogue and Bobby were giggling uncontrollably, with Hank laughing in deep guffaws and Logan snickering like Mutley from Wacky Racers'. Ororo and Jean both laughed with a sound akin to the ringing of silver bells. Bishop, standing back in the shadows of the gathering, felt his own lips twisting upwards, and he looked studiously down at his feet as the flamingo finally wound down.

'…….I did it my way……..'

The X-men laughed and laughed, even after the Flamingo had stopped singing and had grown dark and restful. Suddenly tomorrow didn't seem like such a frightening prospect after all – at least not while the world was full of flamingos and crocodiles and wandering thieves who always paid their dues.

* * *

**A back road in Westchester County:**

The X-men ended up laughing for a long time - the sound spreading outward from that solitary spot in the cemetery and through the grounds of the Xavier estate.

From his hidden vantage point, listening in via a microphone recording device hidden inside the flamingo, a thief in the night smiled to himself. He rubbed his aching shoulder absently with his band-aided hand. It had been a bitch to get all those filaments out but at least he hadn't lost any muscle control. The thief shifted his weight, awkwardly balanced on a crutch, with one leg in a cast up to his mid thigh.

'I did it my way….' He hummed to himself chuckling wickedly.

Making an airy gesture with the hand holding the half-spent cigarette Remy LeBeau, thief, wanderer, master of the near-death fake out, opened a second tesseract portal in the centre of the peaceful country road. He glanced sideways at the road sign on the grass verge as he took a drag off his cigarette and blew a perfect smoke ring.

_You are now leaving Salem Center – Please come back soon!_

Remy LeBeau laughed bright and free before he stepped through the portal without a backward glance. The tesseract closed behind him in the blinking of an eye, but it was still possible, if you listened really carefully, to hear the melody of a laughing devil echoing faintly in the velvet of the night.

In the end, when you look at things rationally and the scales are finally made to balance out, there will always be heroes and there will always be villains; there are saints and there are sinners and a devil lives in the heart of every man and every woman. Life is a gamble; some of us are born a step closer to heaven, and some of us know hell. That's just how this old world works.

But more than that, somewhere out there, in the ever spinning wide world, there is a man swimming with the crocodiles and wading with the flamingos. He is a charming louse, flipping cards and chancing fate, laughing at his own misfortune - and if you are real lucky, mes amis, maybe he'll even tell you his story.

The story of the Devil's own - and how he found redemption on his own terms.

* * *

_C'est finis_

_10__th__ March 2009 - 13__th__ October 2009_

_For all those who have read this story; thank you. I can only hope you have found reason to smile, and laugh, and enjoy what I have written, somewhere along the way. _

_Spikey44_


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